Their New Normal
by AtticusGirl
Summary: Trying to find their way in the aftermath of Arizona cheating.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It was barely 9am and Dr. Callie Torres began to feel the onset of what would likely be a monster tension headache come noon. She sat with eyes trained on Dr. Jackson Avery as he went on about some financial issue that she knew she should be paying attention to, but couldn't manage to care about in the moment. Out of the corner of right eye she could see her wife, Dr. Arizona Robbins, three seats away from her, sitting ram straight and sporting a similar forced and empty stare on her face. Gone were the days when they would sit through morning meetings leaning up against one another in seats pushed close, whispering jokes and picking at a shared muffin. It had been over a month since she found out her wife had cheated on her with a visiting Dr. Lauren Boswell, and the contours of her daily life had now changed to include perfecting a placid look of deep interest in whatever was being said in front of her, all the while trying to avoid any accidental eye contact with her wife.

It had been a little over a month and the intense pain and anger had finally gone down to a dull roar inside her head and heart; ever-present but manageable enough to allow her to get through the day without looking like she might crack at any second. In the days following her wife's vitriol infused confession, she wanted to rage her way through life. She wanted to kick over tables, destroy million-dollar life-saving equipment, break bones with her bare hands, and fall in a crying heap on her office floor. More than anything, she wanted to scream invective at Lauren Boswell and then punch her in that pretty little face of hers. Of course, she did none of that. At the end of the day, there simply wasn't anything Callie could say or do to Lauren Boswell that could ever encompass the enormity of what she had done; what she had helped destroy. It all seemed so futile to Callie in the face of her wife's anger, resentment and obvious deep-seated hatred of her. So she did the only she could possibly do. She steeled her spine and she walked tall.

_Walk tall Torres_.

It wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last, that she wished for the presence of Dr. Mark Sloan. The gaping hole his death had left in her life only seemed to get exponentially bigger over the last month. To say she missed him was an understatement. She wished him present to see their daughter chattering away in both Spanish and English. She wished him present to help her through this mess – to get her drunk and let her cry on his shoulder. And, yes, she wished him present for the comfort of his body, however way he would offer it to her. She knew that it was wrong to miss him like that because it was part of the many complications that undermined the stability of her marriage, but she was human and she missed the utterly uncomplicated comfort that only Mark could give her in the face of heartbreak.

Sensing the subtle shift of bodies around her, Callie came back to reality as the meeting drew to a close. As she stood up, ready to make a bee-line to the nearest coffee cart, she was stopped by Dr. Avery.

"Torres, a word?"

"Sure. What's up?" She winced at the sound of her too-excited voice. _When will everything be back to normal?_

"We have a reporter from the Seattle Times coming in next week. They want to do an exposé on the hospital for the Sunday magazine. You know…new hospital…doctors owning the hospital…etc. etc. I thought it would be good press for us. They're going to run a few different story angles. They wanted to start by interviewing and maybe shadowing one of the surgeons. I suggested you."

"Me? I don't get it. We have Dr. Derek "Million Dollar Hands and Perfect Hair" Shepherd here, so why me? "

"Well, you may not have as perfect hair, but you are Dr. Callie "saved the million dollar hands and doing groundbreaking cartilage research which I just delivered a Ted Talk on" Torres. That's all pretty impressive. And, well, Derek's still technically on paternity leave."

"Ah. So I'm sloppy seconds? Now I get it."

"Come on, Callie. You've done some amazing work this year. You deserve the accolades and attention. Try to enjoy it."

There. She saw it. Pity. It was brief, but she saw it pass through Avery's eyes. She needed to get out of there before she did something she would regret.

"Fine. Whatever. I'll clear my Tuesday schedule. Tell them to be at my office at 9am."

Callie barely heard Avery call out "Thanks" as she headed out the door and to the coffee cart. As she was paying for her giant latte, she felt the kinetic energy of one Dr. Cristina Yang at her side.

"Joe's tonight. You and me." Callie almost laughed at the way Cristina made it a statement rather than a question.

"I can't. I have Sofia."

"What about the one-legged artist formerly known as Rollergirl?"

"Cristina!"

"Oh come on. She hurt you. She deserves a little dished out her way."

"I know, but not the leg! I mean, that's kind of God-smote-you worthy. Not to mention she is still the mother of my child and your friend."

"Meh. I'm an atheist. And, let's face it, I talk like that about and to my friends"

"True." Callie laughed.

"So. Joe's. You, me, tequila. It's happening. Gotta run. See you at 9!"

"Fine" Callie called out with a smirk. She had to admit that drinks sounded enticing. She hadn't so much as had an adult conversation that didn't have do with work in a month. She deserved a break and some companionship. _Yes, yes I do_. She thought as she pulled her phone out to look for the sitter's number.

* * *

"Here's the thing. I am a brilliant surgeon! A brilliant HEART surgeon." Cristina Yang was several shots of tequila into her night and currently holding court with Callie at the corner of the bar. "I don't need that kind of validation. I know what I am. A brilliant fucking surgeon! And you? Look at you! I mean, who in this world actually MAKES cartilage?"

"Me! That's who. I make cartilage!" Callie yelled. Ever aware that she would be woken up not long after dawn by her energetic toddler, Callie had forgone the tequila (minus one beginning of the night shot) in favor of wine. Although she wasn't as far gone as Yang, she was floating on the edges of happy drunkenness. She kept a pace that would keep herself exactly at that place and not any further into the drunkenness that opens the floodgates to despair.

"Exactly! You make cartilage! That's unbelievable. And I save hearts. Actual hearts. I bring them back to beating! I'm awesome!"

"Mmhmm. You are!"

"And, let's face it. I have the ass of an 18 yr old stripper. And I am nasty in bed too. Like really nasty. I'll do anything!"

Callie's head dropped into her hands, howling with laughter.

"And you're like a Cuban Jessica Rabbit. Look at you! No, I don't even think they could draw someone who looks like you! It would break censorship codes. If I were into women, I would be all up into you! We'd be breaking beds in the on-call rooms!"

"Ok. Ok. Yang!" Callie choked out, "I think I get the picture. We might be crossing some boundaries here."

"Well. Whatever. It needed to said." Cristina laughed and knocked back the shot sitting in front of her on the bar.

Callie picked up her wine, nodded and smiled the first real smile she had felt in over a month.

* * *

It was 10am on a Saturday morning and Arizona Robbins was standing outside of the apartment she once shared with her wife and daughter for the first time since she walked out of it with only the essentials of her life in her hand. Well, not all of the essentials. The two biggest essentials lived in that apartment and were no longer with her.

In the direct aftermath of confessing her affair to her wife, Arizona found herself couch surfing at the house of her colleague, Dr. Alex Karev. She had nowhere else to go. After screaming at Callie that she'd cut her leg off to even the score, she knew returning back to their home was simply not an option, nor was moving in across the hall into the vacant apartment of her wife's dead best friend and father of her child. It would have been easy but oh so complicated. Lauren Boswell had offered to share her fancy hotel room, but Arizona couldn't bring herself to do that, no matter how tempting she found the offer.

Even after she told Callie what happened in the on-call room during the storm, Arizona found herself drawn to Lauren in a sort of addictive way. It was clear that Lauren wanted to make some kind of go of it, and Arizona had just enough need to feel something (anything) and just enough recklessness left in her to actually try for a bit. They went on a couple of dinners, followed by couple of quick couplings (once in the back of Arizona's car and another time up against the door of Lauren's hotel room) but Arizona could never really muster up the energy to get beyond the excitement and illicitness of the flirting and the sex. Once the cat was out of the bag, Arizona found that she wasn't really interested in putting forth the energy it took to make a relationship. She didn't have any desire to tell Lauren about herself. She didn't want to tell her about adapting to new schools every other year as her marine dad moved the family all over the world; about being a closeted baby lesbian living on a military base; about losing her brother Tim; and certainly not about almost losing Callie and Sofia in the car crash. So Lauren quickly grew tired of chasing a mirage and off she went to her next assignment somewhere on the other side of the country. And Arizona was left to wonder how someone who set her life off course with the bang of Fourth of July fireworks could exit it so quietly in the darkness of night.

So Alex took her in. She was bruised and battered and full of self-loathing and that was a state Alex knew well. But, of course, Alex was now in love with his intern Jo and Arizona was quickly feeling like a third wheel. Watching two people kissy-face their way through the first throes of love was not ideal for someone who just set off a Molotov cocktail in her marriage. Not to mention, couch surfing was not an ideal situation for someone who needed to co-parent a daughter. She was failing Sofia and that was something she never wanted to do no matter how much anger she had toward Callie. Alex finally told her to get her ass off the couch and stop being the kind of parent he grew up with. He was right. So, she found an apartment with two bedrooms a few blocks from the hospital and asked Callie for some extended time with Sofia. And now here she was; about to pick up Sofia from her old home to take her to the zoo and then to her new home for a night of homemade pizza's and Disney movies. She was more excited than she had been in weeks at the idea of spending the day and night with Sofia and more than a little scared of facing Callie for the first time outside of the neutral buffer zone of the hospital.

Seconds after she rang the doorbell, she heard the approaching footsteps of her wife and felt her heart beat a little faster; a little harder. Callie swung the door open quickly and, for a second, Arizona lost the ability to breathe. For the last month, she had only seen her wife at work. She had only seen her focused on her job, intense and aloof and wholly utilitarian looking in her dark blue scrubs. Now Callie was before her looking slightly flustered and worried and wholly gorgeous in low slung yoga pants, a tank top, no makeup and her shoulder length black hair tied loosely at her neck. It was one of Arizona's most favorite looks on her wife and her stomach did a little Pavlovian flip at the sight. She also couldn't help but notice that Callie was thinner and more drawn, with darkish circles marring the skin under her eyes. She felt the familiar combination of anger and guilt beginning to percolate under her skin.

Before Arizona could get a word in, a little flurry of dark-haired energy came running toward her, wrapping itself around her legs and screaming, "Mama!"

Arizona picked her daughter up and nuzzled into daughters neck, drinking in the scent she had missed so much. Her eyes welled with tears and as she pulled away from her daughter's neck, she saw her wife hastily brushing at her own eyes.

"Come on in," Callie said, "We're just trying to get everything together for you guys. And you need to brush those teeth little lady and get any stuffed animals you want to take with you." She finished, as she pointed to her daughter.

Sofia dutifully slipped out of Arizona's arms and went racing to the bathroom as Arizona hesitantly walked further in to the house that she had once called home.

Callie was going through the bag she had packed for Sofia, mumbling her mental list of Sofia's necessities to herself in Spanish.

"What are you up to today?" Arizona asked, hoping the question came out in a lighter tone than she was feeling.

"Oh, not much. I am off to a yoga class right now and then I thought I would spend the day actually reading a book for fun." Callie half-smiled and then hesitantly added, "Um, can I phone later? I won't be checking in or anything, I just want to hear her voice before I go to sleep."

"Of course you can. I…I think that would be good."

Callie nodded and then started to look intently around the kitchen countertops where she was standing. Arizona almost laughed when she realized Callie was hunting for her keys. Callie's inability to keep track of her keys had been a running nuisance throughout the entirety of their marriage. Arizona had gone full-on commando on the subject. She hung a key rack by the door that went unnoticed, and then placed a key bowl on the table in the front entrance and plastered the area with signs that stated "Keys Here" followed by directional arrows pointing to the bowl. Still, Callie never managed to put her keys anywhere that could be found without, at least, a 15 minute expletive filled hunt. Arizona actually once found Callie's keys in the ice tray in the freezer. Watching her wife search the kitchen with a growing sense of frustration, Arizona drifted over to the couch and nonchalantly picked up a throw pillow.

"Here," she said, holding out the keys she found under the pillow to her wife.

"Thanks." Callie replied. As Callie reached for the keys, Arizona saw the quickest flash of the deepest sorrow flash over her wife's eyes and she suddenly wished she had just left Callie to find them on her own after she and Sofia had left.

Before she could dwell too long, Sofia walked into the living room, carrying her backpack filled to the brim with stuffed animals. Arizona, needing to get out of the presence of her wife and her old home, urged her daughter to say her goodbyes as she picked up the bags to head out the door. Sofia clung to Callie and looked like she might be on the verge of tears, but after a minute she grabbed Arizona's hand and walked out the door with her, turning toward Callie to blow her a kiss as she crossed over the threshold of the door.

As the door closed, both women took a deep breath, shaking breath. It has been awkward and stilted and horrible, but they had managed for the sake of their daughter. The whole encounter made them feel like intimate strangers and it hurt them both, but it was the first step in them coming together to form their new normal.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you all for the wonderful feedback. I am very new at this so it was quite lovely to read.

A/N2: I own nothing.

Chapter Two

Arizona Robbins hastily opened the door of the third floor on-call room, ran inside, slammed it shut and bent her body over with her hands resting on both knees. She couldn't breathe. She felt like she had just run a marathon and was gasping for her lungs to fill with much needed air. _Jesus, this hurts, and it's only the beginning_. She had just come from the office of one Dr. Melanie Fiske, therapist and trauma counselor extraordinaire. She had finally given in to the fact that therapy was a necessary step in the current course of her life. For weeks, she was too caught up in her own downward spiral to care. The world around her had fallen apart so why shouldn't she? She let that woman touch her again and again because it was almost like self-flagellation. She knew Callie would never touch her again so it didn't matter who did at the end of the day. She deserved nothing more than the cold emptiness that followed these assignations. She was dirty and missing a leg and would never be whole again.

But, then there was Sofia. She couldn't do this to her. She had known too many kids who had lost their parents at too young of an age; one of the sad facts of being a military brat. Sofia didn't deserve to pay that price for her mother's self-hatred. The crash had already taken her father away from her and that was more than enough. So, Arizona made the call to Dr. Fiske. And then she began to tell the story of the last year in her own words.

_I was in a plane crash. _

_I lost my leg._

_I cheated on my wife._

She listed the objective facts like a witness going through an examination on the stand. But, of course, Dr. Fiske already knew these facts. They were in her file. It was the life beneath these facts that she was after. And so there was the push and the pull; the questions; the nuances that approximated "_And how did that make you feel, Dr. Robbins? _" Until she finally said it.

_I wanted to die. I wish I were dead._

There. It was out. That feeling that had inhabited her body from the moment she had woken up and found that her leg was gone. She had tried to push it down; had convinced herself that letting in the rainbows and pink bubbles again would push it out. But she was wrong. It was in her bones just as surely as the infection that took her leg. She had to cut it out. So she did. She destroyed her life. She became one of the living dead.

God, she wanted Callie right now. She wanted to feel her wife's embrace. That was the rub; she never ever stopped wanting her wife, no matter how much the anger and hatred warred inside her body and mind. She had always wanted Callie from the first moment she had laid eyes on her walking around a corner of the hospital in mid conversation with Mark Sloan.

"_Who's that?"Arizona coughed, trying to cover up the sudden rise in octave level of her voice._

_Alex Karev looked up at her quizzically with one side of his mouth raised in a questioning smirk. He followed Arizona's gaze to the woman waiting at the elevator who had just animatedly shoved Mark Sloan down the hall away from her. "Oh, that's Callie Torres. Ortho. Kick-ass but kinda crazy. But, you know, don't tell her I said that."_

_Torres. Torres. Arizona was pretty sure she had heard the name around the nurse's station in the weeks before. There was something about a failed marriage and a tryst with a world-class cardio surgeon that ended badly. Tia had definitely mentioned her "coming over to our team" at some point. Arizona was interested. Very interested. She had always pursued women in a sort of detached manner; typical of someone who rarely heard no for an answer. But, there was nothing about Callie Torres that made her feel detached. _

_So, a week later, when she watched Dr. Calliope Torres (she had found out her full name from the hospital data registry) get visibly upset and take off to the bathroom of Joe's bar, she couldn't help but follow her. And when she saw those huge, sad dark eyes, she couldn't help but talk to her and try to make her feel better. And when she saw those beautiful red lips, she couldn't help but lean in and brush them with her own. And when, an hour later, she was sitting in her apartment sipping a glass of red wine and she could still feel and taste Calliope Torres' lips on her own, she knew she was anything but detached._

* * *

Dr. Miranda Bailey saw the flash of blond hair just as the door was closing. She needed to speak to Robbins about a patient. Now. So she knocked on the door of the on-call room, calling out Arizona's name as she opened the door slowly.

"Hey, are you ok?"She asked when she saw Arizona hunched over at the waist.

Arizona popped up, rubbing her temples vigorously, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You don't look fine, Robbins."

"It's nothing, Bailey." But Miranda Bailey's glare didn't waiver and Arizona felt the urge to tell her something. "I…I just had my first therapy session. I'm processing. That's all. I'm a lesbian. We take processing very seriously." Arizona said with a deflecting smile.

"Ok." Bailey didn't seem too convinced but, as she preferred to recognize her friend's privacy, she relented. "Carry on processing. I need to talk with you about the Evans case when you have a minute."

"Sure. I'll be there in a few."

As Bailey reached the door, she turned on her heels and looked back at Arizona, "For what it's worth, I think this is a good step. The therapy. It's good. I'm proud of you for doing it."

"Thanks, Bailey." Arizona whispered. And as Bailey walked out the door, closing it behind her, Arizona shut her eyes and let the tears finally fall.

* * *

Callie looked down at her watch. It was 8:43am. She debated whether to go and get a cup of coffee but decided to wait for the reporter and see if he wanted some as well. She had received a confirmation a few days before of a 9am meeting with one Michael Weston of the Seattle Times. She was dreading this. She didn't know what they wanted. It was the Sunday news, so she gathered it wouldn't be too medical heavy, but what in the hell was she going to talk about then? She really really didn't want to talk about her life, she was certain of that.

Callie heard a quick knock on her office and door and called out, "Come in."

"Dr. Torres?" A tall woman with longish, wavy auburn hair walked into her office and extended out her hand for Callie to shake, "Hi. I'm Michael Weston from The Seattle Times."

"Oh." Callie got up to shake her hand trying to hide her look of surprise. "I was…"

"Expecting a man?" Michael finished her sentence.

"Yeah." Callie chuckled, "Something like that."

"So, you're an avid Sunday magazine reader, I see?" Michael smiled.

"Well," Callie laughed, "Maybe I just don't pay that much attention to by-lines."

"Touché, Dr. Torres"

"Call me Callie, please. Would you like some coffee?"

"Mmhm. That sounds great."

Fifteen minutes later, Callie and Michael were back in Callie's office, coffees in hand, while Callie talked about what motivated her to choose Orthopedics as a specialty when her pager when off.

"Can we hold on a minute? " Callie glanced at the pager and then quickly picked up the phone laying on her desk to make a call. "This is Dr. Torres…Sure…I'll be right there." She looked at Michael, "Sorry, I need to go do something. You can follow me if you want."

Michael followed Callie as she sprint-walked her way to a big room on the ground floor of the hospital. The room was brightly lit and full of kids. Callie walked briskly over to a young woman holding a dark-haired little girl with tears streaming down her face who quickly jumped into Callie's arms as soon as she arrived.

"It's her arm," the daycare worker said. "We were outside on the playground and she took a fall from the steps of the slide. It wasn't a big fall, but it was directly on her arm. I am so sorry."

Callie tried to keep a calm smile on her face as she knelt on the ground with Sofia to get a better look at her arm. "Hey baby girl. Can Mami have a look at your arm? I won't hurt it, I promise, but I just need to take a closer look and see how big the owie is."

As Michael watched Callie gently coax her daughter in to letting her see the extent of the injury, a blonde woman in navy blue scrubs came running into the room, almost knocking Michael off of her feet as she passed through the doorway.

"Is she ok?"Arizona breathed out in a small panic.

"I don't think it's broken but I think we should get an x-ray just in case." She looked up at Arizona and then back at her daughter as she gingerly picked her up. "Mama and I are going to take you to that room with the big camera so we can get a picture of your arm and see if something is wrong with your bones."

"It hurts, mami."

"I know, baby. Mama is going to give you some of her magic that will help take away the pain." Callie said as she kissed Sofia's forehead and headed out of the nursery with Arizona. It was then that she noticed Michael standing in the doorway. "Oh, Michael. Shoot. I'm sorry. Can we reschedule?"

"Absolutely. No problem. I will touch base later to come up with a new time." Michael smiled at Callie as she watched the family head off to the x-ray department.

* * *

"Do you want some tea?"Callie asked as Arizona sat down on the couch in her old living room.

"Sure." Arizona smiled.

Thankfully, Sofia only sustained a bad sprain that would heal quickly with the help of the splint she now wore. Callie and Arizona took the rest of the day off of work, bringing Sofia home after she was fitted with the splint and filling her up with ice cream and lots of stories before she fell asleep on her bed, laying between both of them.

_This almost feels normal_. Arizona couldn't help but be slightly lulled by the false sense of perfect domesticity surrounding her. She knew that in an alternate universe, she'd curl up with Callie on the couch for the rest of day, listening for the subtle cries of their daughter as she woke from her nap. They would order a pizza and watch silly movies and, at the end of the night, they would both let Sofia sleep with them, all the while pretending it was the other's idea, but knowing neither could deny her or themselves the delicious comfort of waking up the next morning with all three of them cuddled together.

But in this real world, she sat across from Callie on the couch, sipping at tea that would never quite warm her up enough to withstand the journey back to her cold and empty apartment.

Callie couldn't help but stare at Arizona as her eyes drifted off in thought. She couldn't help but notice how pale her wife had become. Arizona was still the most beautiful woman she had ever laid eyes on, but she looked almost ghostly against the dark fabric of the couch and her distant eyes somehow looked less blue than before. Callie knew in her heart that none of this was new. How long has she looked like this? How long has my wife been disappearing without me even knowing? She had spent so much of the last year willing everything to be ok in typical Callie fashion that her brain simply refused to compute that it might not actually be. She knew that she had a tendency to barrel her way through life with the kind of single-mindedness that a woman needed to become a top surgeon in a field that was consistently thought of as a men's-only playground. She had wanted her wife back. She had wanted those god awful butterflies back. She had wanted it so much that she didn't leave room for the possibility that they didn't exist anymore. She wasn't blaming herself necessarily. No, Arizona pulled the trigger on their marriage, of that she was sure. But, she was starting to see the shades of grey that filled up their life together.

"I started therapy yesterday."

"Oh, Arizona, that's great."

"Yeah. I cried in an on-call room for a full hour after my first session." Arizona laughed. "I am told that's called progress."

"It can be." Callie smiled.

"Would you mind…um…joining me at some point? Not as a couple's session or anything but just as…as the person who…I owe the most to."

"Of course I'll come. I just want to make sure that I can have my own perimeters there though. I mean, if I feel I need to leave or not come, I want to be able to voice that."

"Of course, Callie. Absolutely."

They both smiled at one another. The smiles were soft and sad with little expression in their eyes, but they were genuine and both thought that had to mean something.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Michael Weston was sitting on the floor outside of Callie Torres' office, thumbing through a dog-eared magazine when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a dark blue figure coming toward her at a rapid pace.

"Crap. Sorry. Crap. Sorry. Crap. Sorry." Callie Torres chanted as she rushed up to the woman sitting outside of her office. "Surgery ran long and the parents were extra worried and I had to stop by the daycare and kiss my daughter goodnight."

Michael laughed as she scrambled to her feet. "No worries. I got to catch up on some quality reading," She smiled as she held up a _People Magazine_. "I mean, who knew Rihanna and Chris Brown were back on? I am clearly out of the loop."

Callie made a face. "Yeah, that's old. They're so over, Thank God. Or, so says last week's issue. "

Michael raised her eyebrows at Callie.

"What?" Callie asked in mock defensiveness. "No newsie judging! The bone business is slow sometimes and there are only so many hours you can spend reading _The_ _New England Journal of Medicine_ before your head will literally explode."

"I bet, " laughed Michael.

"So. I am going to go into my office and change into some real clothes and then I suggest we do this somewhere where I can get some food so I don't pass out mid-interview, if that's ok with you? Consider it my treat for making you wait almost an hour."

"Well, I usually prefer my interview subjects to be upright and, at the very least, semi-conscious, so I think it sounds like a good plan."

Despite her initial reservations about being interviewed, Callie found she very much enjoyed talking with Michael. They sat at a table in a semi-crowded restaurant not far from the hospital, slowly picking at cheeseburgers and French fries while Callie spoke effortlessly about life as an orthopedic surgeon at Sloan-Grey Memorial Hospital. Callie found Michael's questions to be, at once, sincere and gently probing. And, every time she cast her eyes up from her plate, she was met with Michael's startlingly clear green eyes, looking at her with such an honest curiosity that Callie found it grew easier and easier to share details of her life. _She's very good at her job_, Callie thought to herself.

But Michael truly wanted to know what drew the woman in front of her to orthopedics, so Callie talked. Orthopedics just seemed like a logical fit for Callie; a specialty that required precision and raw strength in equal measure. Callie had never been a gentle child; gentleness was her sister Aria's realm. Whereas Aria took after their mother in being petite and mannered with the innate ability to look fully put together at all times, Callie was supremely her father's daughter in her headstrong approach to life. Perhaps it was part and parcel of her size – she stood a good five inches over her mother and sister – or the natural inclination of being the first born, but Callie never could manage to rein in her personality well enough to be the proper daughter that he mother wanted her to be and that her sister managed to become so well. While Aria balanced afterschool duties of student council and was voted prom queen, Callie hung out with the boys who owned and fixed-up muscle cars in garages on the wrong side of town. She wore too much eye makeup and carried a flask filled with whatever alcohol she stole from her dad's collection. Much of it was for show though. She loathed the monied lifestyle she was born into and tried her best to rebel against it all. But, at the end of the day, she longed for her father's respect and for a life that challenged her sensibilities, not just her privilege. So, she returned home from Botswana after a two year stint in the Peace Corps (her biggest attempt yet to deny the privilege she was born to) with the singular goal of becoming a surgeon. When it came time to pick her specialty, joining the ortho jocks seemed like a natural fit. It was a bit like hanging out with the muscle boys, only these boys had scalpels and better intellect. She loved proving all of them wrong that ortho wasn't a place for a woman. More than anything, she loved besting them at their own game. And her cartilage research had provided her with precisely that opportunity. Callie was now rising up to the cream of the crop, and she was more than happy to lay claim to that position.

Michael listened intently as Callie described the foundation of the research she had been conducting for the last couple of years. Callie was impressed with the questions Michael posed to her; Michael had clearly done her research. Callie found Michael's understanding of the subject enough that she could happily dive into discussing some of the finer points of what she had accomplished.

However, as the conversation veered to the fact of the plane accident and the resulting purchase of the hospital by Callie and her colleagues, Michael noticed a marked change in Callie's tone. Whereas the surgeon was animated and impassioned in describing her specialty and her research, she was suddenly neutral and guarded about the events of the crash and its aftermath. If Michael had known the surgeon better, she would have sworn that she saw a complete change shift in the woman sitting before her; her shoulders slumped a little and her eyes became curiously downcast. Michael's instincts as a reporter told her that there was far more to the story than Callie was letting on, but she had a plethora of subject matter to work with already and she didn't want to push the surgeon away just yet.

As the interview was clearly wrapping up, Callie found herself wanting to prolong her time with the reporter.

"So, now that you have all the goods on me, do I get to ask you some questions?"

Michael laughed. "That isn't usually how this works."

"Humor me," Callie said with a smile. "Where are you from?"

"Here, actually. I grew up in Seattle. Believe it or not, my mom was GP at Mercy West. But that was a long time ago. Both of my parents are professors now."

"Ah, doctoring in the blood. So, what happened? Where did you go wrong?"

"Ha ha." Michael made a face at Callie. "I was pre-med for a half-second, but then I took a writing class and the rest was history."

"Where?"

"Columbia."

Callie let out a low whistle. "Impressive. So, then you came back here to work on getting the Pulitzer?"

"Not exactly. I was a stringer for Reuters for awhile…foreign bureau, mostly. I started out covering Kosovo…spent some time in the Congo and then, of course, Afghanistan and Iraq."

"Wow. That's intense. What made you come back here?"

"Family mostly. I needed to touch base with them in a major way, and I needed a change of lifestyle. I was tired of living out of bag. I guess it was time to settle down a bit."

"Do you miss it?"

"Yeah, I do, sometimes. But I knew I wanted a chance at a different life. I want a chance at a relationship and family and, for me, traipsing around war zones was never quite conducive to that. And I like what I do now. I teach writing and do some work for the Times and I get to write creatively and for fun for the first time in my life. That's always been a dream of mine and I figured it was time to pursue it."

"Writing the great American novel, huh?"

"I think I would be happy with writing a good enough Pacific-Northwest short story," said Michael with a quick laugh. She looked up at Callie with such a genuine and intense gaze that Callie's stomach did a tiny flip. "Well, this was nice. You are a very interesting woman, Dr. Torres."

Callie laughed, "So says the female Indiana Jones!" Callie sensed a sudden shift in the air around them and, while it wasn't wholly unwanted, it suddenly made her very nervous. "I…I should probably call it a night."

"Yes, of course. You must be exhausted, and I don't want to keep you from your family."

"No, no. My daughter is with my…my wife tonight." Callie stumbled. "We're separated."

"I'm sorry, Callie."

"Yes, well, it's complicated."Callie let out a wry laugh. "I suppose that's so cliché, huh? Of course, it's complicated; isn't this stuff always complicated?" She shook her head. "My wife was in the crash. She was…hurt…badly." Callie stopped, looking for more words to better explain the inexplicable.

"Hmmm. I've done a few stories on soldiers wounded in war. Physical traumas can have such massive emotional reverberations on a person and their family. I am so sorry for you both," Michael said to Callie with genuine sympathy. And to ease Callie's discomfort, she changed the subject. "Anyway, go get some rest. I will see you tomorrow with the photographer."

Callie scrunched her face in distaste over the prospect of being photographed for the paper.

"Oh stop it!" Michael laughed. "I am fairly certain that the camera is going to love you, Dr. Torres."

Arizona sat on the dewy grass as the spring sunshine tried to work its way to warming the early morning chill. Her residual limb throbbed, the muscles in her right leg ached, her lungs were stinging, and she felt…glorious.

It had been just days ago that she was sitting in Dr. Fiske's office, contemplating this very moment.

"_Tell me something you miss, Arizona. Something that doesn't have to do with your family or your work. Something that is just about you."_

_Arizona sat in silence for a moment before it came to her, "Running. I miss running."_

Arizona had been an avid runner since she was a child. Her father had woken up at the crack of dawn for a 5-10 mile run every weekend since she could remember. When she was 12, Arizona had gotten it in her head that she was going to join him for his weekend ritual. One morning, her father woke up and headed out the door at 5am only to see his daughter standing on the porch suited up to join him. He wanted to laugh at her bony knees and skinny little legs sticking out from a pair of her brother's oversized running shorts, but he instead turned to her and said, "I won't slow down for you. You'll have to learn to keep up."

And she did. Every weekend he was home, until the day she left for college, Arizona and her father together ran the landscape of whatever region of the world they were living in at the time. It was during these times that she learned the most about her father. She listened as he told her of friends he had lost in Vietnam; of the new recruits who both resisted and respected his authority; of his love of country and his heartbreak over what inevitably happened to it in times of war. And, it was during one of their runs that Arizona came out to father. She had just come back to visit her parents at Oceanside for winter break from her freshman year of college. She and her father woke up in their usual fashion and clocked an 8 mile run along the beach. As they sat on the beach at the end of their run, sipping coffee and eating donuts, Arizona told her father of the beautiful and intelligent woman she had fallen in love with. She had tried to keep her voice strong and sure while telling her father about Joanne despite the sheer panic she felt enveloping her. She stared at her father as he sat looking out over the ocean, those deep blue eyes that she had inherited betraying so little as she trembled beside him.

"_Are you still who I raised you to be?"_

"_Yes, daddy."_

And that was it. Her father kissed her on the forehead and they proceeded to walk home, with her father asking her all about her favorite classes and her new friends all along the way.

As Arizona stretched out on the grass beneath her, extending her right leg and the brand new sports prosthesis attached to her left limb, she felt the sheer joy that always filled her being after she ran. Of course, the run was short and awkward and painful at times, but she did. She was learning to keep up again.

_I am trying, daddy. I am trying to be who you raised me to be._


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

**A/N: Again, thank you so much for feedback. This is a new adventure for me and all of the kind words mean a great deal. **

Callie sat in her office thinking about breaking bones. Specifically, she was thinking about breaking a few of her colleague's bones. She had walked in to work in the early morning only to be met with pictures of herself adorning various walls and desks throughout the hospital - in the locker room, on her office door, at the nurse's station near her office, etc.- and almost all of them were playfully adorned with thought bubble messages proclaiming, "I am a God with a saw" or "Let me bone you." Apparently, one or more of her friends and colleagues had spent their free time cutting out photos from Michael's article which appeared in the previous day's Seattle Times. Callie's money was on Cristina Yang; who more than likely roped the new interns into carrying out her plan. Truth be told, she would have likely done the same thing, so she couldn't blame them, especially if it had been a slow night.

Callie was also secretly more than a little pleased. She had read Michael's story the previous evening, after she had put Sofia to sleep, and she was beyond impressed. Michael's writing was evocative without dipping over into sentimental. Callie's story had really been a catalyst for Michael to tell a larger one about the daily successes and failures that drive life and the inevitability of change. She touched on the history of the hospital and its many evolutions, and highlighted the singular drive of the doctors that made up its core. It was a moving piece and Callie found herself wanting to express to Michael its effect on her. She picked up her phone and dialed the number she found on the card Michael had given her at their first meeting.

"Michael Weston," Michael answered in a business like tone.

"Hi, Michael, it's Callie Torres."

"Hey! How are you?" Michael's voice markedly softened.

"Great. I just wanted to call and let you know how impressed I was with your piece. You are a wonderful writer. I would love to see what you do with a more interesting and worthy subject."

"Ha. Modesty from a surgeon? Are you expecting me to buy that?"

Callie laughed, "No. You're right. I think you captured my God-like qualities very well."

"Much better."

"Anyway, I will definitely be looking for the next great American novel by Michael Weston in the near future." Callie paused as she heard Michael laugh on the other end of the line. "And…I just wanted to thank you for the dedication to Dr. Sloan and Dr. Grey. They were great friends of mine. Mark…Dr. Sloan was my best friend and…Sofia's father."

"I know, Callie," said Michael in a low voice. "I researched quite a bit before talking to you. I am so sorry for your loss."

"Thank you, Michael…Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you and job well done."

"Thanks. I am glad you liked it. It means a lot to me."

Callie sat quietly for a moment, contemplating whether it was best to just say goodbye to Michael Weston forever. She knew she had an impetuous nature that often ended up biting her in the ass, but she also knew that talking to Michael had been fun and interesting and she didn't necessarily want to stop doing it. "Hey, some of my colleagues are getting together Friday evening for drinks to celebrate a birthday. Would you like to join us? I think many of them want to meet you to find out exactly how much I paid you off for this article."

Michael couldn't help but smile on the other end of the line, "That sounds great. My lips will be sealed… unless, of course, they come to me with a better offer."

"Ha! That's journalistic integrity for you!" Callie laughed. "So, Joe's bar at 8pm?"

"I'll be there. Take care, Callie."

"You too, Michael." Callie stared at her phone for minutes after she hung up, barely containing the broad smile that played at her lips.

* * *

Arizona Robbins was surrounded by pictures of her wife. Everywhere she seemed to look throughout the hospital, Callie's gorgeous brown eyes were staring back at her. She imagined that the Times photographer had an easy job of coming up with beautiful pictures of Callie, as her wife always took stunning photos, but she was impressed with the way the photographer had managed to capture Callie in moments of expressiveness; moments that were pure Callie. The cover photo was an exquisite shot. The photographer had captured Callie in a contemplative moment while scrubbing in before surgery. The room was mostly dark, lit only by a small light above the sink where Callie stood; casting a spotlight on the intense repose of her features in that moment. Arizona knew the look on Callie's face well. Her jaw was set and her eyes were focused and sharp with one eyebrow raised ever so slightly higher than the other. It was her pre-battle face; the face she took on as she mentally went over every step she was about to take in the operating room. Callie was a fierce surgeon and Arizona never tired of watching her in her element.

But, the pictures were overwhelming her with the mixture of sadness and pride they sparked in her. So, Arizona took advantage of a break in her day to get in a much needed 30 minute run. She had been running for over a week now, and though she would not say that she had come close to mastering her sports prosthetic, she had grown better at working with it. And, she had grown better at fitting her runs in to her day as a way to, not only exercise, but to reflect on the work she was doing with Dr. Fiske as well.

"_I blame Callie for not being on that plane in the same way I blame myself for being on it. Isn't that horrible of me?"_

"_It's human, Arizona, and it's what you feel. What would have been different to you if Callie had been on the plane?"_

"_I don't know," Arizona sighed. "Callie and I have always had a kind of short-hand. We often just knew or felt what was going on with one another without spelling it out. After the crash, I think I wanted her to know what was going on inside of my head, or at least know to ask or say the right things. I was so afraid to say what I was thinking or feeling; afraid it was scare her or drive her away. I guess I feel that if she had been there, if she had been with me, we would have had it in common. I wouldn't have had to feel so afraid because she just would have known."_

"_So you were afraid?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Are you afraid now?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Of what?"_

"_Of never being normal again."_

"_There is no objective normal, Arizona. There is just acceptance of who you are now."_

Arizona wound her way through the halls of the second floor, on her way to grab a post-run coffee at her favored coffee cart. When she saw Callie at the cart, clutching a coffee and laughing animatedly with the woman working behind the cart, she almost turned directly on her heels to walk away. She still hadn't perfected the nonchalance she wished she could portray in the face of running into her wife on a regular basis at work. More than likely, she never would. So, she approached the cart hoping that the warmth created by her run had permeated her being enough to calm her nerves. She walked up to Callie's side, noticing that they were laughing at yet another set of photos someone had decided to plaster along the side of the coffee cart.

"There's our local celebrity." Arizona smiled at Callie. "It was a wonderful article."

Callie turned to see her wife standing next to her, dressed in running gear and radiating the kind of energy she always had after a good run. Callie's stomach did a little flip at the sight of her and she fought to calm herself, "Aw, it was nothing. Just a little fluff piece."

"Hmmm. Yeah, well, I know better. I know what you've accomplished these past couple of years."

Callie caught sight of the sport prosthesis and felt a rush of emotion. She knew what running had meant to her wife. Every Saturday and Sunday morning throughout the entirety of their relationship, Callie would shake her head with incredulity as Arizona slipped out of bed at the crack of dawn to go for a run, no matter rain or shine. Just as Arizona could never understand Callie's love of morning yoga, Callie could never understand Arizona's love for early morning, long runs in the park. Callie had always felt that running was a singularly futile form of exercise. That is, until one morning when Arizona came bounding into the kitchen post-run while Callie was fixing breakfast. There was something about the way her cheeks were flushed; her hair was wild from the wind and her strong runner's legs moved in her little running shorts that turned Callie on like nothing else. She practically wanted to lick the sweat off of Arizona's neck. When she shot Arizona a knowing look, Arizona almost choked with laughter.

"_You seriously cannot be horny right now!"_

"_Oh, no. I seriously can be."_

"_I am a sweaty mess!"_

"_Mmhmm. You are."_

And Callie had walked to Arizona; kissing her and slowly pulling off her shirt and shorts as she walked her backwards toward their bedroom.

Arizona saw Callie looking at her prosthesis. "It's new. I am slowly getting the hang of it."

"That's great, Arizona." But, while Callie was happy for her wife in taking this step for herself, there was a part of her that was also angry; angry because she had spent all of the past year praying Arizona would make a move like this. She had spent every weekend morning hoping that she would be woken up at the crack of dawn by a frustrated Arizona trying to hunt down her running shoes or her iPod in the pre-dawn darkness. She had wanted to encourage Arizona to try to run, but she felt that she would be pushing her, and with the constant arguments they had over her regular prosthesis, she just didn't have the energy. Callie was proud of Arizona for taking this step and for wearing the new prosthesis so unashamedly and uncovered, but she was also frustrated and sad that it took Arizona being away from her to accomplish these things.

Arizona sensed that Callie had left the moment; that she had gone somewhere in the recesses of the past. She hated that she could see the warring emotions across Callie's face. She wanted to take it all away; to turn back the clock to be able to rewrite their story. But, she knew she couldn't. She could only take those tiny steps toward acceptance.

As she grabbed her latte and started back toward her office, Arizona turned back toward Callie, "The reporter was right. You are an amazing woman, Calliope Torres."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Yes, I get that cartilage research is fascinating and ground-breaking…blah, blah, blah. But, you really need to look at cardio. We're the heart of the hospital!" Cristina Yang yelled at Michael Weston above the din of Friday night at Joe's Bar.

"Oh, no you didn't! Please, tell me that you are better with your scalpel than you are with puns!" Michael shot back at her.

Callie, Cristina and Michael sat at a table, drinking beer and enjoying the lively atmosphere surrounding them. The colleagues of Grey-Sloan Memorial were gathered in the bar, celebrating the birthday of Dr. Jackson Avery. It had turned into an unusually raucous celebration, spurred on by the obvious need of many of the doctors to find joy in the aftermath of a tumultuous year. For the better part of the evening, the three women drank, laughed and swapped stories. Callie and Cristina told Michael about the daily antics of the doctors and nurses at the hospital; the stories sounding so ridiculous that at one point Michael told them that she doubted she would ever trust a doctor to help her ever again. For her part, Michael regaled Callie and Cristina with stories of hiding out in underground bunkers, getting drink off of homemade moonshine, while bombs shells exploded all around the ground above her head. _She's so badass_ Cristina mouthed to Callie.

As Michael left the table to get the next round of beers, Cristina tuned to Callie and said, "Little miss Christiane Amanpour likes you."

"Shut it, Yang."

"She does. I can tell. She does play for your team, right? I mean, whatever team you're playing for at the moment."

"I don't know! I didn't ask her, and it's not like there's some secret handshake or something."

"Liar. I bet there is. Doesn't matter. She lik…ow!" Cristina was cut off by Callie kicking her under the table as Michael walked up the table gingerly balancing three beers in her hand. As she moved to set them on the edge of the table, she was pushed from behind by a small crowd of drunken guys making their way to the bar. The beer toppled over the table, one of the glass shattering in Michael's had as it came in contact with the edge of the table.

Callie jumped up from the table, yelling at the clueless idiots in front of her. "Watch it, assholes!"

"Hey, Callie. It's fine. Relax," Michael said, trying to calm the quick anger she saw flare in the surgeon. Callie tuned to Michael and saw her clutching her hand, her face wincing in silent pain; a flash of red coated the palm of her right hand.

"Shit, you're cut," said Callie worriedly."Come on, let's go clean that up." She grabbed her bag and walked Michael back toward the bathroom.

xxxxxxxxxx

"So, what's the verdict, Doc? Am I going to live?" Michael was leaning up against the sink in the bathroom as Callie gently felt along the edges of the deep cut the glass shard had left on Michael's palm. Callie had cleaned the cut with water and applied some antiseptic ointment she carried with her in her bag as part of her "doctor and mother of a rambunctious toddler" emergency kit.

"Hmmm. I think it will be touch and go for awhile, but you should pull through, especially with the help of one of these." She smiled as she held up a _Dora the Explorer _band-aid.

"Ohhh, my favorite! The other kids on the playground are going to be so jealous!" Michael laughed as Callie placed the band-aid over her wound.

Callie looked up at Michael, suddenly aware that she was standing extremely close to the other woman. Callie's thighs were pressing gently against Michael's and, as they stood almost the same height, she found herself looking directly into the dark green eyes of the woman in front of her. Not for the first time, Callie found herself unable to tear herself away from those eyes.

Michael felt her nerves start to jump as she stared at Callie. She was all too aware of just how much they were invading one another's space. She liked the feeling. A lot. "You are an undeniably beautiful woman, Dr. Torres," She whispered to Callie.

It took Callie about a second to lean her lips toward Michael's.

xxxxxxxxx

Arizona felt frazzled as she opened the door to Joe's bar. She had spent the early part of the evening playing and making dinner for Sofia. Meredith Grey-Shepherd had phoned her earlier in the day asking if Sofia wanted to join them for an overnight play-date. It seemed that her eldest daughter, Zola, was starting to get a bit jealous of the constant attention her mother had to bestow on her newborn baby brother, so Meredith thought at it would be a nice treat for Zola to have Sofia to spend the night and the following day at their house for some toddler fun. Arizona was a little reluctant to give up time with Sofia, but she had talked to Callie and they both agreed that it might be nice break for Sofia as well. They were both all too aware that Sofia was confused and anxious about the current situation with her moms. In the past, Zola and Sofia had fairly regular sleepovers, as it was an easy way for both set of parents to get some alone time, so Callie and Arizona felt that a return to this normal part of their life may be a good step for daughter. So, Arizona, rushed from dinner back to the hospital to drop Sofia off with Derek Shepherd and Zola. As she left the hospital, she thought about returning home to curl up with a good book. Miranda Bailey had called to see if she was going to show up at Joe's to celebrate Avery's birthday. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to go, but she knew that touching base with friends outside of work was a needed step, and her nerves were set enough on edge from leaving Sofia that she thought a drink or two might be what she needed. And, of course, she had to take the plunge in terms of learning how to socialize in a setting with her estranged wife. It was an inevitable part of their situation and one they both had avoided, until now.

As Arizona walked into the bar, she was overwhelmed by the particularly loud atmosphere. Needing a minute to adjust and put her game face on, she headed toward the back bathroom, rummaging through her purse for her favorite lip-gloss as she walked. As she pulled open the door to the bathroom and looked up from her purse, she froze as the air around her seemed go static. She watched wide-eyed as her wife stood, nestled in between the legs of another woman, kissing her with unmistakable passion. Arizona watched, feeling like the scene in front of her was unraveling in slow motion, as Callie brought her hand up to cradle the jaw of the other woman, her fingers gently entwining with the red strands flowing past the nape of the other woman's neck. It was a gesture Arizona was intimately familiar with and one she had felt hundreds of times. Callie loved to touch and caress her cheek while she kissed her. Callie was the first lover of Arizona's to kiss her in that particular way and it was something Arizona had grown addicted to like a unique drug; the soft digging of Callie's fingertips as they drew a line over her cheekbone to tangle into her hair in order to urge her lips closer with the softest of pressure.

Arizona let in a sharp intake of breath as the door to the bathroom struck her in the elbow as it swung back on her where she was rooted to the ground in surprise. The noise caused the woman in Callie's embrace to pull back, and Arizona caught the beautiful green eyes widen with recognition as they met hers.

Callie was startled as Michael suddenly pulled away from her and as she turned to follow Michael's gaze behind her, she saw Arizona standing in the doorway, her eyes struck with such a painful myriad of emotions that their normal light blue gave way to something dark and raging.

"I…I'm sorry," Arizona stammered as she backed her way out of the bathroom as quickly as possible.

"Shit," Callie muttered under her breath. She walked the length of the bathroom and hit her hand against the door with more force than she had intended, before turning back to Michael. "No! She doesn't get to do this. She doesn't get to look hurt!"

"Callie…"

"No! She cheated! She ruined us. She doesn't get to play sad and wounded."

"Callie…"

"Who the fuck does she think she is?" Callie raged as she pointed to the closed door Arizona had just exited through.

"Callie!" Michael yelled, stopping Callie in her tracks and getting her to finally pause from her angry tirade. "Look, I am sorry. I know this sucks, more than a little, but I don't think I am the one you actually want to be saying these things to."

Callie looked at Michael and nodded slowly, "I know….For what it's worth, I was enjoying myself until about a minute ago."

Michael smiled, "Yeah, me too."

xxxxxxxxxx

Arizona's limb throbbed. She had fled the bar right after walking out of the bathroom, ignoring the questioning looks of those friends that watched her leave as abruptly as she walked in. As she left the bar, she began to run back to her apartment, as fast as her high-heeled prosthetic would carry her. It hurt like hell, but she couldn't slow down. Now, she stood in the living room in semi-darkness, with only the light from an end-table lamp she had hastily turned on as she walked in casting shadowy glow across her apartment. _What do I do? What do I do? _ She felt as if her brain was on fire, the synapses sparking with so much emotion that she felt on the verge of unconsciousness. It was all too much.

Arizona was startled back in to reality by a less than gentle pounding on her front door.

"Arizona!" Callie yelled through the closed door. "Open up, or I swear your neighbors will get an earful."

Arizona moved to the door and opened it, almost losing her footing as Callie rushed into the apartment and whirled on her.

"No, no, no, no, no, no. Screw you, Arizona! Screw you! You don't get to look at me like that. You don't get to give me those eyes full of hurt and sadness! No way!"

Arizona shut the door and bowed her head, nodding silently as Callie raged in front of her. In a strange way Arizona was almost grateful for Callie's intense anger. For all of the weeks after she had said such hateful things to Callie in the aftermath of being caught with Lauren, Callie had become so unbearably polite. Throughout the run-ins at work and the pick-ups and drop-offs with Sofia, Callie had become so staid; so utterly calm and amenable that it frightened Arizona. Without even realizing it, she had longed to see the emotionally charged side of Callie, even if that meant seeing that emotion aimed at her in a negative way.

"I searched throughout that hospital in the dark looking for you! Do you get that? I kept looking and asking for you because all I wanted was to get to you and get Sofia and go home and be safe with my family. And all the while you were holed up in an on-call room fucking that woman! So, no, you don't get to be mad or hurt and you don't get to make me feel guilty. And I hope…I truly hope…that seeing me with Michael caused you even a fraction of the pain you have caused me because then you might, for one second, get your head out of your ass and see what you have done!"

Callie angrily turned her back on Arizona standing in doorway, shaking with unshed tears. She paced through the living room and then threw herself back against the wall with her head in her hands. She slowly slid down the length of the wall until she was sitting, her legs bent and pulled close to her body. She lifted her hands from her face and spoke in a more even tone that was laced with remnants of her anger and sadness, "Fuck, Arizona. I've been trying. I…I was so angry at you. I was angry because for one minute you made me wish that you had never kissed me in that bar all those years ago. And then I thought about what would have happened if you hadn't kissed me…all of the things I would have missed…getting married…having Sofia. I was so angry at you for making me wish, for one second, that Sofia had never been here. I had to find a place for that anger because…because of Sofia and because I needed to. I've been trying…I have put the anger and the blame and sadness somewhere where I can manage it…somewhere where I can move on. But…"Callie shook her head as her voice started to catch, "but it's the love that's killing me. I don't know where to put it, Arizona. And it won't just go away. Why won't it just go away?" Callie softly pleaded.

Arizona sunk to the ground and crawled to the wall, mimicking Callie's posture, sitting against it several away from her. For a long time, they both sat in the darkness of the apartment, letting the silence wash over them.

"Tell me about making the call to cut my leg," Arizona whispered.

"What?"

"Tell me about making the call to cut my leg." She looked over at Callie with pleading eyes, "Please…I want to know."

"I don't know, Arizona," Callie sighed. "You all came back from the crash and everything was so dark. Lexie was dead. Mark was barely holding on. Cristina took off and Meredith was walking around like a ghost. Derek's hand…and…you're leg. For weeks it felt like we were working through a graveyard. Those of us who were left behind were struggling to keep our heads above water. And then, I don't know, something changed. There seemed to be this little light trying to peak through everything. Mark woke up, I had a plan for Derek's hand, and I had a plan for your leg. I thought that we were all finally getting through the worst part." Callie closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall behind her. "And then it all just fell apart. I was in surgery with Derek for…I don't know…an hour maybe, when Alex came rushing through the door to tell me that you were coding. I sat there with my scalpel poised above Derek Shepherd's million-dollar hand as Alex told me that you were dying. I went through everything…everything…but he had tried it all and none of it had worked. I didn't know what to do. He just kept staring at me…waiting for me to tell him what to do. All that training…and I didn't know what to do. I didn't want you to die…I…I couldn't let you die. So…I told him to make the cut. I told him to do his best. And then he left. And I had to put you out of my mind and get back to Derek's hand. God, Arizona, I hated myself for that," Callie whispered as tears poured down her cheeks, "I hated myself that I could just push my dying wife out of mind to get back to my job. And when I was finished…when I was scrubbing out of surgery, I felt something shift. I knew that whatever light that had been trying to peak through, had gone dark. And I was right. Mark died, Derek's hand didn't work, and you…you were broken." Callie opened her eyes and turned to see Arizona looking at her, both of their faces wet with tears. "I am so sorry, Arizona. I am so sorry I couldn't fix you. And I am so sorry I pushed…I just needed…I just needed a way out of that darkness."

Arizona rolled her head away from Callie and stared down at her hands that lay in her lap. "I remember waking up after the crash and hearing this God-awful screaming. I kept wanting to tell whoever was screaming to shut the hell up. Then I realized that it was me. I was the one screaming. I was the one screaming because I couldn't believe the pain I was in." Arizona gave a hollow laugh. "When I could finally sit up and see that my leg was impaled…see what it looked like…I remember thinking, 'Callie would love this. She would have a field day with this.' It was so cold, Callie. I kept trying to close my eyes and picture you, me and Sofia cuddled up in bed on a Sunday morning. Anything to keep out the cold. And then there was Mark. He was dying. He knew it and he didn't care because…because…Lexie was dead. We could hear…the animals." Arizona shook her head, as if to rid herself of the next thought. "I just tried to make Mark talk to me to forget the cold and the dying. I made him talk about Sofia and you. He told me stuff about you from before I had met you. He told me how you'd forced him to scope me out after I had kissed you and how you'd spent days hiding and watching me after I turned you down for a date. And then he laughed and said, 'But don't tell Torres I am telling you any of this; she'd kill me.' We were like that…for days. I truly thought we were going to die but I just didn't want to say it…not in front of Mark. And then…they found us. When I saw you that first time…saw Sofia…I have never felt so much in my life. I wanted our life back. I wanted it back right then and there. I wanted to forget everything that had happened." She looked over her shoulder and locked eyes with Callie. "I know I shouldn't have asked you to promise me. I am so sorry I did that to you. I…I had asked Tim to promise me…when I was in medical school and he was home on leave. I had asked him to promise me that he would come home in one piece. He just laughed at me and told me to stop worrying like the little pansy sister I was. And then he was gone…When I woke up in that hospital bed and saw my leg gone…and you sitting by my bed…I don't know, Callie….it was like I was brought back to that day again. All of the anger and pain…everything I had felt like that in my life congealed in that moment inside of me and took over. I…I am so sorry. I am sorry that I couldn't talk to you. I am so sorry I shut you out. And I will be sorry, until the day I die, for hurting you."

Arizona sat staring into the darkness. After several minutes, she slowly picked herself up off of the floor. She walked to stand in front of Callie, who was still seated on the floor with her back against the wall. Arizona looked down at Callie, her red tear-stained eyes staring silently into Callie's, similarly weary and worn.

"Come with me," Arizona whispered.

Callie watched as her wife slowly made her way to the back of the darkened apartment.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

**A/N: Again, I can only say how thankful I am for the many reviews, follows, favorites, etc. **

_Come with me._

Callie watched Arizona walk away from her toward the back of the apartment. She sat in the quiet darkness, clutching her knees to her chest. Although she was tired and drained, she felt a peculiar lightness; the kind of ethereal emptiness that follows an outpouring of the tensions that have held one's body tight for weeks and months. She quietly rose from her position on the ground and followed the path her wife had taken just minutes before. When she reached the back of the apartment, she opened the door to the bedroom that had been left slightly ajar.

Arizona sat on the edge of her bed staring at the door to her bedroom. As Callie walked through the door, Arizona cast her eyes up to briefly meet hers, before moving them down again to stare at her legs. Slowly and silently, Arizona unbuttoned her trousers and pulled them down her legs. She sat up and removed her top in the same calm manner. Callie stood, un-moving at the door, watching as Arizona reached for the straps of her prosthetic, removing the leg with a practiced grace. Arizona then moved her body to the center of the bed, pulled back the covers, and lay on her side, looking up at her wife.

Callie stood rooted to the ground for several minutes, staring at Arizona laying in front of her in only her black bra and underwear. Her face was unreadable and Arizona thought for a moment that her wife was going to turn around and leave without saying a word, until she saw Callie slowly reach for the button of her jeans. When Callie finished removing her clothing, she stood for a moment in her red bra and underwear. A quick flash of something almost painful flashed through her eyes before she walked toward the bed and lay down on her side facing Arizona.

The room was illuminated by the subtle moonlight coming through the open curtain. The two women lay for a long time looking at one another as their eyes followed the contours of each other's face reflected in the glow of the room. Arizona was the first to break the unspoken physical barrier between them, lifting her hand and bringing her fingertips to Callie's brow. She started to gently trace the planes of Callie's face, dragging her fingertips slowly down to Callie's cheekbone. It was the first time Arizona had touched her wife in over two months and the sheer pleasure of the act almost made her cry out. She slowly traced the paths of dried tears down Callie's cheeks, and pressed her fingertips to Callie's hot skin, thinking to herself, _I am finally warm. _

Callie, for herself, was close to trembling as the sense-memory of Arizona's touch began to overwhelm her. Just as she was about to reach her hand out to get her own feel of naked skin, Arizona lifted herself up and moved down the length of the bed, sitting herself down next to Callie's legs. She cupped her hand behind Callie's shin and slowly drew her hand up the length of Callie's calf. _I can see her now_. For so long she had missed seeing her wife; missed Callie as she was standing right there in front of her.

Arizona ghosted her hand around Callie's knee, searching with the pad of her thumb for the tiny indentation of soft skin just above her kneecap. _There it is_. She traced the circle of skin, imagining the lighter shade of the soft aureole. Callie had told her years ago of how she had gotten the scar when she was barely ten years old. She had been playing with some neighborhood boys in an abandon lot not far from her house. They had spent the day hopping fences and hanging from trees, until Callie had fallen from a not so low hanging branch and split the skin of her knee almost down to the bone. Callie walked the half mile home, holding in her tears so as not to appear like a silly girl in front of the boys. When she made it home, Callie expected the warm embrace of her mother, only to be met with stern reprimand and reminders of her inability to act in the proper manner befitting her family. Upon hearing that story, Arizona had felt the singular rage that only Mrs. Torres could bring out in her. In the months and years following their wedding, Callie's mother continued her refusal to accept Callie, Arizona and Sofia as a family. The markers of their life went by – Sofia's first birthday, their first wedding anniversary, Sofia's second birthday – without the recognition of Callie's mother, and Arizona spent the darkest part of those days holding Callie as she cried herself to sleep, the anger and love fermenting deep inside of her.

Arizona bent down and pressed her lips to Callie's knee, then continued mapping Callie's body; up her thigh and past the fullness of her hip. Arizona let her hand gently rest at Callie's abdomen before she leaned over, yet again, to touch her lips to the puckered skin that marked Callie's body where she had given life and almost lost hers in the process. As Arizona moved her hand up between the plain of Callie's breasts, she stretched her body out to meet the length of her wife.

Callie had been near breathless as Arizona touched her body. She had watched Arizona's face; the play of emotions dancing over it as Arizona reacquainted herself with the temporality of her wife. When Arizona finished her journey and laid herself alongside Callie's body, Callie limbs moved, as if of their own accord, to entwine themselves with her wife. Callie had always loved the feel and the look of their bodies wrapped around one another. In the light of the early mornings, as they would wake in a tangle of bedding and limbs, Callie would gaze down at the perfect paleness of her wife laying next to her own richly dark skin.

_A study in contrast._

She was aware that this was how everyone saw them: Arizona; all blonde and butterflies with magic to make the kids better, and Callie; all brash and darkness with strength to break and rebuild. A study in contrast. But, it was in the silences of their relationship, far away from the eyes of their colleagues and friends, that each found the whole they were looking for. For Callie, it was the solace she found in the strength behind the butterflies; in the wife who let her cry and rage and live outside the lines and accepted her in the face of it. And, her too-big body and too-dark skin that she tried to hide as a child, looked stunning in their bed, in contrast with her wife. _You are so beautiful, Calliope. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen_.

Callie reached her hand out to touch her wife's skin, running it up and down the length of Arizona's back. She felt how Arizona had grown softer and thinner over the course of the year. Arizona was a military child who ran on order and schedule; her body had been as taught and lean as the lines of her life. Callie could feel how this had given way in the skin beneath her fingers. _All of the Arizona has been scooped out_.

She closed her eyes against the thought and dragged her hand down over and around Arizona's hip, cupping her from behind and dragging their bodies closer together. After Callie had realized her attraction to women many years prior, she spent a hilariously reflexive (and drunk) evening with Mark pondering what part of the female anatomy would be her favorite. She hadn't really been able to solidify her thoughts on the matter during her too-short tryst with Erica Hahn. However, following the wedding of Alex Karev and Izzie Stevens, when she managed to get Arizona in to her bedroom and out of the blue dress she was wearing, Callie made the surprising discovery that she was an ass girl. Or, at the very least, she was an Arizona's ass girl. Of that she was sure.

Callie brought her hand back up the length of Arizona's body and skimmed her fingertips under the edge of Arizona's bra. Her thumb moved out to graze against Arizona's nipple, feeling it harden instantly.

"Fuck, Calliope," Arizona whispered. "Please kiss me while you do that."

Callie smirked. That was yet another fun discovery she had made during her first time in bed with Arizona; the pretty little Peds surgeon loved to swear and talk dirty during sex.

Callie bought her lips to Arizona's. It was slow and gentle at first, until Arizona opened her mouth and pushed her tongue against Callie's lips, seeking entrance into her mouth. As Callie complied, they both let out soft moans and their hands reached to pull the remainder of their underclothes off of one another.

Arizona moved Callie slightly over so she lay flat on her back, pulling off the lacy red bra as she climbed over Callie's body. Arizona brought her lips from Callie's mouth to the back of her jaw and down her neck. Arizona's mouth descended lower until she reached the peak of Callie's breast and pulled it into her mouth as Callie's hand reflexively came up and fisted in her hair.

Callie bit her lip and let out a low groan as she threw her head back onto the bed and pushed her body up further to meet Arizona's mouth. Her body felt wound like a spring; the combination of being touched with such passion and the complex emotional understanding that it was Arizona – the object of her greatest love and her greatest pain – that was giving her pleasure. Callie felt as if she didn't quite know what to do. She didn't know where to put her hands or her lips and found herself wanting to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. She felt her hand loosen in Arizona's hair as Arizona moved down her body. Her hips bucked and her legs moved wider apart as Arizona fit her body in between them. Callie lifted her head up to gaze down the length of her body. She had done this hundreds of times in the past; watched as Arizona moved toward her center. Arizona's blonde hair would be wildly splayed across her stomach and Callie would watch as Arizona's head would lift up, giving Callie a sexy smirk before moving to take Callie into her mouth.

Callie watched. She watched the wild blonde hair on her stomach. She watched her wife's naked back laying between her legs. She watched those beautiful blue eyes lifting up to gaze at her; seeking remembrance; seeking permission.

And then it flashed through her mind. Her wife, laying in between the legs of Lauren Boswell…Her wife, looking up with clear blue eyes into the face of Lauren Boswell.

Arizona felt Callie's body still abruptly just seconds before she felt Callie's hands hurriedly pushing her away from her body.

"Arizona, stop. Please, stop!"

Callie pulled her herself up to sitting quickly and then rolled out of the bed, gathering her clothes that lay on the floor.

"I'm sorry. I…I can't. I shouldn't have." Callie stammered as she pulled on her clothes and moved toward the door, giving Arizona a confused look before walking out of the bedroom.

Arizona had stayed glued to her position sitting on the bed with her eyes closed while Callie hurriedly gathered her things and walked out the room. She didn't move until the heard the light slam of her front door. Only then did she crawl up the bed, pulling the covers up over her and curling into herself to block out the light.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**A/N: Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the various feedbackwish can't quite explain how meaningful it all is for me, so I hope that those who read this story will understand the import. **

"I kissed the reporter and then almost had sex with my wife."

"Excuse me?" Cristina's voice piqued questioningly at Callie as they walked their way toward the cafeteria. "I think I am going to need some coffee for this conversation."

Callie twisted a napkin around in her hands, tearing it apart in little bits by its edges as she sat across from Cristina at a table in the corner of the cafeteria. She could still feel the remnants of tension from the previous night coming off of her body. She had been coiled like a spring when she ran out of Arizona's apartment; her mind and body racing with anger, pain and the leftover arousal from Arizona's touch. In the dark of her own apartment, she paced the floor wildly, the anger brimming over in her into a silent fury. She felt betrayed; by her body, her mind, and, of course, Arizona. Touching her wife again had released those warring emotions inside of her that she had worked so hard in the last weeks to suppress. She had spent the last year craving Arizona in just the way Arizona had come to her that night; passionate, open and present to her. Even in the few times they had made love before the fallout, Arizona had been reserved. Callie had chalked it up to the awkwardness of finding their way back to one another after so long of being physically distant. But, when Arizona began to caress the length of her body, Callie felt that exquisite connection that had been ever present between them since before their lives were altered by the crash. She had felt like she was coming home. Until, she thought of her wife with Lauren Boswell. And, then the illusion shattered like glass in her mind's eye; the shards cutting her until she ran from her wife's bed in to the safety of the night.

"What am I doing? I mean, I am a mother, for God's sake. Shouldn't I be over this kind of behavior by now?"

"Yes." Cristina replied, earning a pointed look from Callie. "What? You do realize who you are talking to right? There are plenty of others girl-talkers in this place who will sugar coat it for you, but since you came to me, you clearly want something else. So, what happened?"

"Arizona saw me kissing Michael at Joe's. She looked at me with these hurt eyes and I just kind of freaked out. I went after her to her apartment and told her off and then…one thing led to another, I guess. I stopped it…I thought of her and that woman and I just needed to leave."

"Well, that's a bit of a mess." Cristina said in a dry tone. "Have you spoken to either of them yet?"

"No. I feel like a bit of shit to Michael. She's amazing, and I enjoy hanging out with her, but I just feel so overwhelmed right now. I don't want to necessarily stop talking to her either."

"Just be honest with her, Callie. She knows it's been a hell of a year for you. She seems cool enough to understand. What about Arizona?"

"I don't know," Callie sighed. "It was a mistake getting physical with her. But, I feel so confused. She's Arizona…my wife…the woman I thought I would be sitting next to, eating Jell-O and playing cards with in an old folk's home fifty years from now. And, instead, I end up in an on-call room listening to her yell at me about how much she resents me for trying to save her life right after she banged a blonde toothpick under my nose." Callie put her hands to her eyes in an effort to squash the inevitable tears that came to the surface. "I just don't know how it all got so messed up."

Cristina's voice softened at the evident turmoil on Callie's face. "Look, I know I have been hard on Arizona, and I think what she did was horrible and I kind of want to hang her up by her roller-skates, but I have been on both sides of the trauma and PTSD equation and it's beyond tough, Callie. It can change you in ways you never would have imagined. I'm not saying that's an excuse for what she did, but," Cristina's voice caught ever so slightly, "it was…it was a nightmare Callie. All of us are still trying to deal with it in our own ways, but Arizona is the only one of us who carries around an actual physical reminder of it every day. You have every right to be mad at her. You have every right to not want to be with her. But, in order to move forward in any way, at some point, you guys are going to have to really talk and listen to one another…and, you know…preferably not when you're naked and with your tongues down each other's throats."

Callie let out a muffled laugh. "Noted. Thanks, Cristina." Callie looked intently at Cristina, her face going soft with compassion, "I'm so sorry for what you all had to go through, Cristina."

"Yeah, well…" Cristina's voice drifted off into the ether and she put her down with a little shake. She looked up at Callie with eyes that looked suddenly glassy with emotion. "I know what you're going through Callie, and it sucks. It sucks big time. Give yourself some time and, whatever decision you eventually make, you have to own that decision."

"Is that what you did with Owen?"

"Pretty much. We talked and talked and talked….I never talked so much in my damn life. But I made my decision and I worked to own it."

"Did you think about it…you know…when you were with him?

Cristina looked away for a minute and Callie saw the almost imperceptible look of sadness cross Cristina's face before she turned back to her, "Sometimes, yes."

"What did you do?"

"I'd be honest and tell Owen. Or, if it was too much in a moment, I'd just go and do something just for me." Cristina looked pointedly at Callie. "You have to make the choice for yourself, Callie."

Callie nodded. "Do you miss Owen?" She asked with trepidation in her voice.

"Yes. But, I am owning this choice now." Cristina answered with a resigned smile

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"I screwed up."

Arizona was sitting in Dr. Fiske's office; her soothingly decorated, beige and earth-tones mixed office.

_I don't want to live in an Easter basket._

_And I don't want to live in a bat cave._

Arizona shook the memory from her mind and tried to concentrate on what she was saying.

"I saw Callie with another woman and I got upset." Arizona gave a sarcastic laugh. "Isn't that rich? Me, the cheater, angry at my wife for kissing another woman."

"Your infidelity doesn't take away from your feeling, Arizona," replied Dr. Fiske. "It's valid to feel upset seeing your wife with someone else. What happened after that?"

"She followed me home and we had a fight. We said…a lot of things," Arizona sighed. "And then I seduced her into my bed…I think. She ran away before we finished, or started, really."

"Why do you say you seduced her?" Dr. Fiske asked.

"Because I asked her to come to my room…my bed. At the time I didn't think I wanted sex. I thought I just wanted to be close to her somehow. But, I was the one who initiated everything…the touching, the kissing." Arizona felt her cheeks get hot with the memory, as well as, a little embarrassment. "I started the sex."

"Why do you think you went to sex, if you say that wasn't what you wanted?"

"I wanted…to…feel; to not be numb anymore"

"And you feel something during sex? You don't feel numb?"

"Sometimes." Arizona took a long breath. "I remember wanting that feeling the first time…with Lauren. I just wanted to not be numb anymore. But, it didn't help. I still felt numb. With Callie...before the crash, I was never numb. I felt everything. All of the time. But, after…." Arizona's voice trailed off for a moment. "Last night we said all of these things. And, I felt something for the first time in so long. I just wanted more…I didn't want it to end."

"What was said between you and Callie before you ended up in bed?"

"I told her about the crash…waking up after surgery...a bit about my brother and how it all reminded me of that time. I asked her to tell me about having to cut my leg…about having to make the call."

"How did that make you feel to hear Callie's point of view?"

"Sad. I wanted…I wanted to comfort her." Arizona put her head down and swallowed hard to keep the imminent tears at bay. "I never saw her. I had been so caught up in my own darkness that I couldn't see the price that breaking her promise to me could do to her." She pressed her fingers to her temples as. "I don't know why Callie and I left it so long….why we never talked."

"Why do you think you never talked?"

"I don't know. Isn't that what I am here for?" Arizona's head popped up, her frustration evident in the pinched expression she shot the doctor.

"Tell me about your brother." Dr. Fiske stated in stated in an even tone, trying to overlook the edge seeping in to Arizona's voice.

"What?" Arizona asked sharply. "He died in the war. It was awhile ago. I was in my residency."

"What happened after he died?"

"Nothing." Arizona stared blankly. "My father is a career marine. I am soldier's daughter. We don't…" Arizona's mouth went dry as she searched for the right word. "...dwell."

"What would you say to your brother right now, if you could?"

Arizona shook her head, biting her bottom lip hard. The knot that had begun in her stomach had reached her throat. She wasn't sure she could even get her voice out. "I would tell him…I love you; I miss you; I think about you every day."

"And Callie?" Dr. Fiske, asked, "What would you say to Callie right now, if you could?"

Arizona closed her eyes. Her body started to shake almost imperceptibly as she lost the battle with her tears. Her voice came out in a near whisper "I would tell her…I love you; I miss you; I think about you every day."

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Callie sat in her office thinking about her conversation with Cristina. Her nerves were less on edge, but she still hadn't managed to rid her body and mind of the feeling of Arizona; of the images of her tear-stained face as she described the aftermath of the crash, her near naked body laying prostrate in her bed, or her eyes, bright with passion as she leaned herself into Callie to capture her lips in a kiss. Arizona had always been under her skin, from the moment of their first kiss, but now she had to find a way to clear her head and order her feelings. Time. Such a simple a simple concept. _Can it heal all wounds_? Callie wondered. _What about the wounds that you can't see, can't feel, but are so deep that they bleed you from within? _ Time.

Callie moved to pick up her phone to call Michael when she heard a light knocking at the door.

"Come in." She called out.

The door opened and Arizona's head peaked through hesitantly. Callie felt a small knot forming in her stomach but she fought to betray none of her feeling. For a moment, both women stared at one another, casting equally imperturbable looks. Arizona finally walked a few steps into Callie's office.

"I brought you something." She struggled to keep her tone lighter than she felt as she held up a white paper bag.

"Donut's?" Callie asked with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

"No. Donut's are "get well" baked goods. I brought chocolates croissants. Chocolate croissants are "I'm sorry" baked goods."

Callie gave out a small laugh despite her tensions, and motioned Arizona to sit down.

Arizona sat opposite Callie. She felt shy and awkward in Callie's office. She had spent countless hours there in the past; sharing lunch with Callie, asking her advice on a specific case, playing on the floor with Sofia while waiting for Callie to finish a shift. Her mind flashed to an image of them in the office from a little over a year ago. Arizona had come to Callie, heavy and worn from the loss of a patient, a young boy of 8 with bright eyes and a beautiful smile and a heart so damaged that even her magic couldn't help him. Arizona had perfected her coping skills for losing patients, especially entering into Peds, where loss of a patient meant the loss of a child. But, every once and awhile, a case snuck up on her. She'd grow attached, knowing that it would end in heartbreak, but unable to stem the tide of feelings. In this particular case, Arizona had lost herself. She had made it to Callie's office, just in time for her tears to start. Callie wrapped her in her arms, whispering words of love and encouragement. But, Arizona needed more. She sought Callie's lips with her own while she worked her hands underneath Callie's scrub top, seeking the unique warmth of Callie's skin. When Callie had moved to pull away for a moment, Arizona dug her nails into Callie's skin, pulling her back. _Please, Calliope. Please_. Arizona looked at Callie, her eyes raging with a palpable need; she wanted to be taken; she wanted to be used; she wanted to be obliterated. So Callie had flipped her around and pushed her against the desk so that her arms were splayed out across it in front her. She pulled Arizona's scrub pants down and took her from behind as Arizona twisted her upper body, grabbing at Callie's hair to pull her in for a searing kiss.

Arizona took a deep breath, trying to stem the heat the sudden memory had caused her. "I wanted to apologize. I shouldn't have let things get as far as they did. That wasn't my intention when I asked you to join me, Callie. I just wanted…to be close for a minute."

"Arizona, I wasn't exactly running for the hills…at first. "Callie sighed. "I'm sorry I came raging at you, as well. It wasn't my finest moment."

They were both silent for a few moments.

"I know I have no right to ask anything of you…but, would you come to my next therapy session with me? I just want to talk and I think it would be useful to have a third party present."

Callie hesitated for a moment. She felt conflicted and scared, but knew that they needed to get to a place where being near one another wasn't defined by unbreakable tension, anger, or pain. "I think that might be a good idea."

Arizona smiled, "Thank you, Callie. I…I should go. I have an appy to prep for." Arizona stood up quickly and headed to the door, turning back to Callie just before she exited. "I know that you are partly gone, Callie, but I just wanted to thank you for not running away completely just yet."

Callie watched as her wife walked out of her office.

Time. She couldn't stop it. She couldn't bring it back. So, she would continue forward.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

**A/N: Thank you, as always, for feedback. It means a great deal to me. **

There are two sides to every memory; that which is the truth and that which we tell ourselves is the truth. As Callie sat soaking up the early summer sun, she went over the memories of her marriage, the images flipping through her mind like images moving through an old fashioned zoetrope. Had she engaged in the little deceptions that inevitably become part of the narrative of two lives brought together in love, lust, shared need and want? Had she told herself the seemingly innocuous and sometimes desperate lies that serve to get us through the day?

She thought of Mark. Had she used Mark as an insurance policy on her heart? In the aftermath of Arizona leaving her for Africa, when she had finally learned what it meant to be broken by someone, she had gone to him for comfort. She had given him her body and taken his in return, content in their shared language of desire without commitment. And then, when Arizona retuned, begging forgiveness and wanting of a second chance, she kept Mark close to her sleeve. Of course, there was necessity; he was the father of her baby. But had she twisted the logic and truth in her mind to fit her need? Had she told herself that all was going to be ok because she wanted it to, whether the writing on the wall told her a different truth or not?

"_You lost your best friend and the father of your daughter in the crash?" Dr. Fiske spoke to Callie in way that made her words sound like statement and question all at once._

"_Yes." Callie replied. She was sitting on a couch across from Dr. Fiske, with Arizona sitting to her side, both of them pushed up against their respective corners, afraid to venture closer to one another._

"_How have you dealt with that this past year?"_

"_I don't know, "Callie replied, averting her eyes away from the intent stare of the therapist. "There has been so much to deal with…so much to do."_

"_Did you talk about it between the two of you?" The therapist asked looking between Arizona and Callie._

_Callie shook her head. "We talked about the particulars…the apartment, benefits for Sofia…"_

"_Were you able to tell Arizona how you felt?"_

_Callie looked at Arizona beside her and then back at the therapist, answering hesitantly. "I was afraid. I didn't want to add to the situation. Arizona was so distant, so unreachable. I just…just pushed it away and focused on the day to day."_

"_How did you feel in the aftermath?" Dr. Fiske asked Arizona. "About Mark?" _

_Arizona sat for several minutes, searching for the words to describe the complexities of her feelings. "I was with him…I asked him to hold on for all of us." Arizona started quietly. "I had had a contentious relationship with him to begin with, but we'd gotten to a place where we were friends. I had grown to love him as a parent to Sofia…even if I…wasn't always comfortable with the situation. I felt…guilty after he died. I felt guilty that I had survived…I had survived and I wasn't even happy about it. And…I was afraid that I wouldn't be enough…that Callie would wake up and realize this horrible hand she'd been dealt…her dead best friend and her crippled wife."_

_Callie tuned on her wife. "How could you think that?" Her voice became laced with the agitation bubbling up inside of her. "I tried, Arizona! I tried to tell you I was there; I was with you! Over and over again."_

"_I know! But you didn't sign up for this!"_

"_Yes! Yes, I did! I signed up for a life together and this is our life. I told you that!" Callie felt herself starting snap at the conversation dipping back to the past. "You threw him back at me, Arizona! You threw it all back at me. 'You didn't lose anything!' That's what you told me!"_

_Arizona put her face in her hands in the same way she had the night she had confessed. She shook her head, trying to rid her mind of the voices and images of that night. Pulling her hands away from face, she looked at Callie with eyes filled with pain. "I am so sorry, Callie. I am so sorry I said any of that. I know you lost…I know you lost immeasurably. I…I didn't want to see it because I was afraid. I was afraid that if you really saw how much you lost…Mark…the Arizona you had fallen in love with…you would realize what a lost cause it all was…what a lost cause I was. I was broken…I was broken…and nothing was going to change that!"_

True love disassembles us. We are told that love builds us up, makes us stronger, but the reality is that it just as easily breaks us down. It reveals us, to ourselves and others, little by little; peeling our layers back like an onion, until our heart, our very essence is laid bare for all to see. Callie thought back on her great loves. George: the greatness of the love lay in the aftermath, in Callie discovering how impetuous she had been, how faulty was the foundation upon which she had built her feelings. It was a juvenile love, made up of false promises and naïve desires, but its end revealed a Callie that was better than she had ever imagined. Mark: a love born of kinship and common souls, all made simple by its obvious lack of romanticism and true want. It was a pure love, if but a twisted version of pure; their hearts and intentions were always honest and exposed in their admission of belonging to others. Arizona: her true love. They had come together in a way Callie had never known before; in body, mind and being. They had given themselves in the truest of ways; dismantling and building themselves together in tune to one another.

In the moment they had expressed their love for one another for the first time, Callie had felt the axis of her world shift. Arizona had come to her after running out of her birthday party. She was raw and exposed, suffering the loss of a beloved patient.

"_I love you."_

"_You do?" _

"_I do."_

"_I love you too." _

_Arizona moved to where Callie sat on the couch. She kneeled at Callie's feet and smoothed her hands up Callie's legs until she reached the hem of the sexy slip Callie had put on to impress her. Arizona grabbed the bottom of the slip and rose up on her knees as she lifted the slip up Callie's body and over her head. She pulled Callie down to the floor, divested herself of her clothing, and laid herself over Callie's body. She swept her hand down the length of Callie's body and back up her inner thigh until she reached the apex of her legs and entered two fingers into her, fucking her in a gentle rhythm, all the while whispering into her ear, 'I love you, Calliope. I love you.'_

Yes, Callie had been disassembled. That was her truth.

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_All sins begin in fear_.

Arizona conjured up the line she had read from a book years ago. The multitude of her sins of the past year lay out before her: Lust, wrath, pride…and, she was sure there had been more that she was unable to recognize clearly in the moment. Arizona had always been a child of light, an illuminated backdrop to the order and duty of her family. Where others may have been constrained by or rebelled against the authority and formality of her upbringing, Arizona met the structure with a singular brightness that confounded and utterly charmed her family. She had never been afraid, not in a real sense. There had simply never been a need, so sure was she in the effect of her temperament in lifting everything around her. She had been so sure, that is, until the aftermath of the crash. In the aftermath, her fears had metastasized throughout her body, spreading their darkness, precipitating her sins.

"_I was afraid to be intimate with Callie because I wasn't whole, because I was less than I had been." Arizona stared at Dr. Fiske with piercing eyes, avoiding Callie's gaze as she struggled to elaborate her feelings. Dr. Fiske had moved the conversation toward a discussion of their struggle to regain intimacy in the aftermath of Arizona's amputation. _

"_You were beautiful to me. You have always been beautiful to me." Callie said tightly. _

"_Give me an example…a moment when you felt something less intimately." Dr. Fiske asked Arizona, trying to draw her out despite Callie's quick reprisal._

_Arizona hesitated. Her eyes closed briefly and she bit her bottom lip slightly. Callie watched her, knowing the look was one of contemplation, weighing the decision of whether to utter the words she was forming in her head. She glanced over at Callie, meeting her eyes hesitantly, and then looked back at the therapist nervously. "We had always been…passionate in our intimacy. There had never been a lot of boundaries. Callie never hesitated to…um, get rough when I intimated that was what I wanted."Arizona's cheeks colored lightly at the admission. "When we were finally intimate after my leg, it was different. She was…hesitant."_

"_You were hurting!"Callie jumped in. "You had been in pain for days, weeks, months…I didn't want to hurt you more!"_

"_I know!" Arizona replied, her eyes now pinned on Callie. "I know that in my head, but…" Arizona stopped, closing her eyes and taking a long breathe, looking back at Callie with the most even stare she could muster. "You loved my legs." She whispered. "I knew that. You…you would lay over me…in bed, and you would caress my legs and pull them up and around you. I loved that feeling, Calliope. I loved wrapping myself around you like that. I just...you couldn't touch me like that again."_

"_Jesus, Arizona," Callie sighed as she put her head in hands._

"_What are you feeling, Callie?" Dr. Fiske asked gently._

"_I am feeling…I am feeling like an idiot and a failure."Callie said as she looked up, eyes glistening. "I am an orthopedic surgeon, for God's sake. I am orthopedic surgeon and I couldn't save my wife's leg. You couldn't write that irony…I am a wife…a woman who desperately loved my achingly beautiful wife, but couldn't convince her of that. I tried to bring her back, but it didn't work…and then some woman accomplishes it in knowing my wife for three days. Three fucking days." Callie hung her head as the tears she had been holding back finally fell._

"_Callie, Please," Arizona pleaded with her wife, her own tears soaking her face as she cried. "I know you tried. She didn't bring me back, Callie. Please. Know that she did nothing more for me, not even a fraction of what you have done for me."_

"_You blame me!" Callie lifted her head suddenly, her voice raised with the intensity matching the look she gave her wife. "You hate me!"_

"_No!" Arizona shot back with equal intensity. "I blame myself! I hate myself!"_

_Callie and Arizona sat back in their respective corners following their outbursts. They stayed that way for several minute, Dr. Fiske allowing them to brave the enormity of their words in the silence they needed. _

"_I can't take it back," Arizona stared hesitantly. "As much as I wish it more than anything in the world, I can't take back what I did or what I said. I can only move forward. I can only show you what I mean now."_

"_I know." Callie nodded. "But I can only move forward too, Arizona. I don't know if I can do it in the way you want me to. I…I don't trust you, Arizona. I don't trust you to not leave me, to not break me again. I know you are hurting, and I am sorry for that. But, I need to protect myself too. I…I don't know what I want yet. I need time. I'm not walking away, Arizona, I am just…just being careful."Callie's voice went achingly low, "You must know by now that you are the only person who can do this to me; the only person who can ever do this to me."_

_Arizona closed her eyes and nodded slowly, the consequence of her sins washing over her like the cold chill that welcomes you in the darkness of an early winter morning. _

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Callie saw the tall woman with red hair and bright green eyes making her way toward her, the sunlight framing her figure like a movie backdrop. Callie smiled a warm smile as Michael sat down next to her on the park bench where she had been seated since she left Dr. Fiske's office.

"Hey there. How are you?"

"Ok. Happy to have heard from you today." Michael smiled at Callie.

"Yeah, I am sorry to have been incommunicado. It's been a strange week. I wanted to talk to you, but I needed to think. I…I wanted to come to you with honesty."

"Ok. Honesty is good"

Callie took a deep breath. "I like you. I think you are smart and funny and definitely attractive. But….I love my wife. I need you to know that. I don't trust her and I don't know that I want to be with her, but I still love her. I…I just don't know what that means for me right now. I don't necessarily want to stop hanging out with you though." Callie said hesitantly. "That's shitty, isn't it? Tell me that's shitty?"

Michael laughed. "No, it's not shitty. Refreshingly honest, maybe, but not shitty…I like you too Callie. But…I am going to say something kind of harsh and I don't want you to take it as such."

"Ok." Callie said curiously.

Michael leaned in to Callie, close to her ear and said in a near whisper, "You aren't the only fish in the sea, Doc."

Callie laughed and hit Michael lightly on the shoulder. "Gee thanks!"

Michael smiled. "Kidding. I just though your surgeon ego might like that. No, really, Callie, I am big girl. I have been around more blocks than I care to share. I certainly was given fair warning that you had a lot going on in your life."

"But you just couldn't help yourself, huh?"Callie smirked.

Michael laughed. "Something like that." She looked honestly at Callie. "You haven't broken my heart or dreams, Callie. That's all I am trying to say. I would like to hang out too, but no pining, no wishful thinking, just good old fashioned friendship."

"Good old fashioned friendship sounds really great right about now."

"Then so it is, friend."

xxxxxxxxx

Arizona fingered the cigarette in her pocket as she made her way out of the back entrance of the hospital and behind the cover of the large dumpster. She pulled the cigarette and lighter from her pocket and lit the cigarette, throwing her head back as she inhaled the smoke, the subtle burning reaching her lungs in a moment; her body calmed as she exhaled in a long shaft of smoke.

"Robbins?"

Arizona's eyes flew open and she found herself staring at the curiously perplexed face of Dr. Owen Hunt.

"Owen." Her voiced betrayed far more annoyance than she hoped to.

"What are you doing her, Arizona?"

Arizona held up the lit cigarette. "Keeping up with my secret vice. Well, one of them anyway." She said with a deprecating smirk.

Owen stared at Arizona, his awkward nervousness apparent in the odd way he danced on his heels.

"Owen, not you too." Arizona sighed. "Everyone is treating me like I am either an imminent biohazard or some freaking glass figurine that will break if breathed on. Not you too. I'd expect more out of you, Owen."Arizona said sharply.

Owen cleared his throat and then looked at Arizona with raised eyebrows. "How's the phantom pain?"

"Better. Still there but less so"

"Good. How about the other stuff? Trauma?"

"Therapy. A few weeks now."

"Very good."

They stood opposite one another for a moment, Owen staring at his feet while Arizona took a long drag from her cigarette. Arizona leaned her head against the brick wall behind her.

"What do you do, Owen, when you've just exploded your life? How do you get it back?"

" One day at a time."

Arizona shot him a thoroughly annoyed look.

"Hey," Owen said as lifted his hands defensively. "It's a cliché for a reason."

Arizona gave a small chuckle and smile. She reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out the pack of cigarettes and held them out to Owen, "Want one?"

Owen screwed up his face in what Arizona had come to consider the patented Owen look. "Definitely."

* * *

The quote Arizona refers to is from the book _Away_ by Amy Bloom


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

**A/N: I am perpetually grateful for the kind words I receive. Thank you.**

Arizona sat in her car outside of her old apartment. She felt the usual mix of emotions that preceded seeing Callie. Today would be the first time she would spend a full day with Callie and Sofia together, celebrating Sofia's birthday with a handful of screaming little kids and their parents. She tapped her foot vigorously on the floor of her car and pursed her lips, wondering if she could sneak in a cigarette to calm her nerves. Nope. Callie would smell it on her and then she would have to go in to _that_ conversation. Besides, she had been feeling good lately. Well, maybe _good_ was a bit of stretch, but she had certainly been feeling _good-ish_. With several weeks of therapy under her belt, Arizona had started to feel the oppressive weight of the darkness surrounding her begin to lift. She still felt the overwhelming guilt and sadness of her betrayal of her family, but she no longer felt trapped by it; no longer felt like she couldn't speak or breathe for fear of drowning. There had been a magic domino effect in speaking the words, not just of what she had done, but what she had felt.

Sitting in the mono-chromatic serenity of Dr. Fiske's office, the dam had cracked and then broken as Arizona found herself recounting more and more of the details of her life pre and post plane crash. She had come to realize that she was indeed a soldier's daughter. She was every bit ruled by order as her father, but her order came through in her doggedly upbeat attitude and guileless approach to getting what she wanted. That incessant sunshine; that damned perkiness was how she controlled the chaos. It was how she found the energy to be the perfect she had always needed to be; the perfect daughter who comes out as gay to military father, the perfect sister who fills the space left empty by her dead brother, the perfect mother who desperately loves the child she never knew she wanted, and the perfect wife who overlooks the cracks in a marriage to love her wife wholly, if not blindly. Until, of course, a random accident undermined it all. Arizona almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. The randomness of a plane falling out of the sky, and suddenly her perfectly ordered, perfectly mapped life falls horribly off course. And, in the aftermath, in her wholly imperfect state of trauma and leglessness, she made the wholly imperfect choice of sleeping with Lauren Boswell.

"_Had you ever contemplated, been tempted, by infidelity in your marriage before?" Dr. Fiske asked._

"_No." Arizona shook her head. "I mean, aside from the standard issue fantasies of bedding my favorite movie stars. No. I have always believed in monogamy. And, I had this idea of my marriage…maybe it was ridiculous and unfounded…that it was untouchable."_

"_Untouchable? How?"_

"_I don't know. Callie and I had been through so much – the breakup, Mark, almost losing Callie and Sofia. It just seemed that getting through that and still being together…what else could touch us? Nothing. We had proven ourselves and we were happy." Arizona said with a wistful smile. _

"_And, after the crash?" Dr. Fiske prodded delicately. _

_Arizona paused for a moment, searching for her next words. "There was so much anger between us…from me especially. I had a hard time looking at Callie and not seeing the person who had cut my leg off…the person who had changed me despite the promise not to. I know that I wanted to forgive her, to move on, but I just didn't seem to be able to."_

"_You said that things started to get a bit better. You had become intimate again? But it was hesitant. Can you tell me a little bit more about that time?"_

_Arizona nodded slowly. "Callie had become pretty frustrated. And, truth be told, I was too. I wanted so desperately for things to get back to normal. I…I just didn't seem to know how to accomplish it."Arizona sighed. "It was like I just sort of split in two. There was the Arizona who able to look past everything and smile and be intimate and fun with my wife again. And then there was the other Arizona; the one that couldn't see past the anger and doubt, and couldn't stop thinking these horrible thoughts."_

"_What kind of thoughts?"_

_Arizona bit at her bottom lip and cast her eyes down before looking back at the doctor to speak. "Thoughts like…would it have been better if I had died in the crash? Was I ever going to be normal? Was I just a liability for Callie now? Did she really want me?...I tried to put them in the back of my head, but it never seemed to fully work. And the hesitancy between Callie and I…the distance we were trying to overcome…just seemed to make it harder for the dark Arizona to just disappear." _

"_And then you met Lauren?"_

_Arizona nodded._

"_What was different about that? About how you felt?" Dr. Fiske continued._

"_I…I guess it was the newness…this new set of eyes on me. She was very forthright about being attracted to me. There was no hesitancy at all from her. She…she almost reminded me of how I used to be." Arizona put her head in hand, shaking it back and forth. "God, how messed up is that?"_

"_Arizona," Dr. Fiske said, gently. "It is not uncommon for people who have been though trauma such as you have to act out in ways that seem unlike them in order to feel something or get back something they have lost. So, you saw some things in Lauren, some things that you feel you had lost?"_

_Arizona nodded, her eyes welling, "The confidence…the ease. I was that person once. I was the person who could take on any surgery, no questions asked. I was that person who saw Callie and decided I wanted her…went up to her without even knowing her and kissed her. I couldn't find that person anymore….and then this attractive woman walks in and reminds me of that person...seemed to think I was that person still…She told me that it was ok to lose control sometimes…the thing is, I think I hadn't had control since the crash, not in any real sense. That's what I was looking for…that's what I wanted." _

"_Control is a big issue for you, Arizona. Can you see that there are things that happen that we can't always control?" _

_Arizona gave a small shrug. "I have tried to see that in my life, in my job, but I guess I am not very good at it."_

"_The plane crash, you couldn't control that Arizona. No one could control that. Your leg, you couldn't control that, Callie couldn't control that. No one. " Dr. Fiske said, looking intently at Arizona._

_Arizona nodded, "I know."_

" _And you can't control how Callie responds to you right now. All you can control is what you do and how you act. Can you see that?"_

"_I am starting to." Arizona whispered. _

xxxxxxxxx

Callie had to suppress a laugh as she opened the apartment door to the picture of a frazzled Arizona bending under the weight of three huge shopping bags.

"What in the world?" Callie asked.

"Presents, food, cake stuff, and I may have gone a bit overboard on decorations." Arizona said sheepishly as she started to hand over some the stuff to Callie.

"Arizona, we're decorating an apartment, not the Taj Mahal!"

Before Arizona could answer, the whirlwind that was Sofia came running to her, yelling and almost knocking her to her feet, "Mama!"

Callie reached out to steady Arizona and grab at the bags that were now headed to floor following their daughter's onslaught. "Shit!" Callie yelled as she dropped the bag of food in her hand.

"Callie!" Arizona yelled she scooped up Sofia and gave Callie a look.

Sofia, ever the observant child, smiled sweetly at her moms and said in the clearest of voices, "Shit."

Callie rolled her eyes. "Oh, fu.."

"Calliope!" Arizona cut her off sharply.

"Oops."Callie smiled as she covered her mouth with her hand.

"Yes, well, you are getting blamed when we get the report that Sofia is teaching the other kids in daycare how to swear."

xxxxxxxx

"Why am I always the princess?" Arizona asked as she stood up from the floor where she was playing with Sofia and glanced at herself in the mirror on the wall in the living room.

Sometime toward the end of the party, Sofia and Zola, hopped up on far too many cupcakes and candies than either set of parents would have ever allowed on an ordinary day, decided that it was time to play princess. This was their favorite game and usually entailed dressing either Arizona or Meredith up in whatever their little heads came up with – toilet paper, glitter, make-up, tiaras. The girls had gone all out on Arizona and now, in the aftermath of the party, she was able to get a look at just how much red lipstick and glitter nail polish covered her face and body.

"Blame Disney." Callie said dryly as moved around the kitchen, packing up the leftover food in the kitchen.

"Excuse me?"

" Disney. All those princesses look like you." She said, waving her hand up and down at Arizona. "There were no princesses that looked like me…or Sofia or Zola, for that matter."

"Aw," Arizona said teasingly to Callie. "Did someone want to be a princess when she was little?"

"No way!" Callie said, screwing up her face in a way to let Arizona know she was talking crazy. "I didn't want to be stuck in some stupid tower or castle waiting for some prince, I wanted to be out, you know, riding the horses and slaying the dragons."

Arizona laughed and raised her eyebrow in a questioning look. "And you say that you really had no idea that you might be gay until just before we met?"

"Oh, shut up."

Callie noticed Arizona wincing and limping slightly as she went around the living room, picking up the remnants of the party.

"Hey, why don't you just sit down and color with Sofia for minute." Callie said, motioning to Arizona's leg. "You were running around a lot with the kids today."

"Callie, its fi…" Arizona stated

"Arizona," Callie sighed, interrupting her. "Please don't tell me its fine, yet again. Can you at least acknowledge that I might have some expertise in this area? That I might actually know what I am talking about? That I might know and understand that you are hurting?"

Arizona swallowed and nodded slowly."Ok. It does hurt."

"Just sit on the couch. Take off the leg if you need to." Callie said.

Callie the momentary look of hesitation go over Arizona's face as she looked at Sofia playing next to her. Arizona had let Sofia see her without her prosthetic on a few occasions, mostly when she was able to cover her residual limb with a blanket or clothing. Sofia had never seen her mother remove or put on her prosthetic before.

"It's ok." Callie said quietly, looking intently at her wife.

Arizona nodded. She sat back on the couch and removed her jeans. She turned to Sofia and said, "Hey baby girl, do you want to help out mama?"

Sofia got up from where she was sitting and walked to Arizona. Arizona unhooked the prosthetic and pulled it off, smiling at Sofia, who stood watching her mother's movements with her own childlike intensity.

"Mama?" Sofia asked as she put her hand out to touch where Arizona's leg ended so abruptly. Arizona nodded to Sofia and took hold of her tiny hand, guiding it to the base of limb.

"It hurts, mama?" Sofia asked with her big brown eyes looking up at Arizona. Arizona was always taken aback when Sofia looked at her with eyes that reminded her so much of Callie's; so dark, yet so open.

"Yes, baby. It hurts." Arizona answered, with a quiet smile to her daughter.

Sofia leaned her tiny body over Arizona's leg and planted a small kiss above the base of limb, just as she had seen Arizona do for her through dozens of scraped and bruised knees. Arizona looked up at Callie who stood motionless in the kitchen, watching her wife and daughter. They shared a small smile before Sofia looked back up at Arizona with knowing eyes and said, "Its shit, mama."

Arizona burst out laughing. She pulled her daughter to her, ruffling her hair and kissing her on the head. "Yes, baby. It's definitely shit."

xxxxxxxxx

"Well, that wasn't too painful." Callie said as she walked into the living room.

"The crash following the sugar rush is always a nice boon to bedtime." Arizona smiled as she sat against one arm of the couch sipping at a glass of wine Callie had poured for her before putting Sofia to bed.

Callie took a seat on the other end of the couch and sipped at her wine, her face suddenly taking on a faraway look that did not go unnoticed by her wife.

"Hey," Arizona said gently. Callie cast her eyes to her and Arizona knew instinctively what was going on in her wife's head. She leaned forward to lightly brush at Callie's hand that lay on the couch between them. Arizona felt Callie flinch, but then her fingers softened in Arizona's hand. "It's ok to miss him, Callie."

"I know." Callie said softly.

"It's her birthday and he loved these celebrations…He was here though, Callie. He wouldn't have missed it." Arizona pulled her hand away from Callie's slowly after giving it a gentle squeeze, sensing that the emotion in the moment was getting too much for Callie and worried that her presence was too close and imposing. "Thank you for today, by the way. It was super fun, even if I now look like a Disney princess in drag."

Callie laughed and swiped at her eyes. "You do. You really do." Callie paused for a moment. "I would never keep you from her, no matter what we are going through."

"I know that, Callie. I just wanted to say thank you anyway." Arizona sighed and leaned her head against her hand resting on the couch. "I am so sorry I fucked this all up."

"I know." Callie nodded, staring at her glass in her hand. "And…I know that I did things in the past that weren't helpful for us." Callie shook her head and looked back at Arizona."Can we not talk about this right now? Can we just sit and be thankful for this beautiful and amazing person we all helped create?"

"Yeah." Arizona replied quietly. "I can do that. I'd like that."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

_When it rains it pours._

Callie understood this maxim all too well. She sat on the window seat of the room she grew up in and thought of the period years ago when she'd found out that George had cheated on her with Izzie. In a quick succession of days, her marriage had disintegrated and she'd lost her position as chief resident. In those moments, she'd struggled to understand the will of her God that would place so many burdens at her feet at one time. Of course, in the weeks and months that followed, as the dust of her chaotic life had begun to settle, she was able to see the good that had come from her fall – the return to the OR that she loved and the spark of the new journey to discover a part of herself that she never knew.

As Callie sat in her teen-aged bedroom, listening to the din of the people in the living room below her gathered together in death, she felt the weight of questions against her God begin to take hold again. _Why this? Why now? _Truth be told, this time she was almost numb to it all. If the last year had taught her anything, it was that things can actually get worse. So, it was almost unsurprising to her when she stepped out of surgery on a Wednesday afternoon to find that her father had been calling her repeatedly for over two hours to tell her the news.

_It's your mother. Heart attack. It happened very fast._

So, she moved with the particular kind of somnambulism created by prolonged pain and disappointment to rearrange her surgery schedule, arrange for Arizona to keep Sofia for the week (_No, Arizona, I don't need you to come with me._), and take the first flight to Miami.

And, now Callie sat in her old house, with her enormous extended family, feeling every bit the stranger to them that she had become. In the hours since she had been back in Miami, she watched as her sister Aria held court in their old home, claiming the position that would have rightfully been hers had she not left to the furthest corner of the US and had not become the family castaway by virtue of her wife and daughter. If Callie's life had gone according to the family plan, she would be in the center of the home where Aria stood, receiving her many family members as they paid their respects to her mother. It would be her children that her aunts scooped up on to their knees and her husband that stood by her father for support. But, as life didn't turn out as was expected, it was Aria and her husband and their two children who formed the center of the household with their father, while Callie ghosted along the fringes, smiling opaquely at her relatives while she told them only the surface truths of her life in Seattle.

Callie glanced around her room with a bittersweet smile. In the years since she had left, the room had been converted into a semi-storage space, with boxes of her mother and father's business files piled tightly in the corners. The remnants of Callie's childhood peaked through the haphazard array of household leftovers stacked throughout the room. There was Callie's old bed with the flowered bedspread that she'd argued against (_It's too girly, mama_!), the ribbons and certificates from the days when she participated in school events with the eagerness of a child longing to please, and the bookshelf stacked with dog-eared copies of her favorite novels – The Island of the Blue Dolphin, A Wrinkle in Time, The Nancy Drew Mysteries. It was like her room had frozen in time, at a point before the complications of adulthood set in; before she realized that some kinds of love, even those that we least expect, can never be given or taken without conditions.

Callie turned toward the door when she heard a soft knocking. "Come in."

Her father entered carrying a tray with coffees and cakes; Callie absent mindedly noticed that the coffee was served in her parent's best china, their wedding china. As Callie looked at her father, she felt the overwhelming fear that one feels when they recognize that their parent has gotten old without them even noticing. Her father was still imposing, to be sure, but his gait was slower and more resigned, the lines on his face were deeper, and his eyes, though still bright and inquisitive, sagged at the edges in a way she had never seen before. It scared her more than she cared to admit.

For a long while, Callie and her father sat in silence, sipping at that the dark Cuban coffee. Callie missed the rich taste of her father's coffee. She now lived in a city so full of cafes that the choices seemed limitless, but she'd yet to find a cup that rivaled the deep delicacy of the brew she'd grown up with.

"You're mother was a stubborn woman. That's where you got it from." Her father stated as he looked up from his coffee to Callie with searching eyes.

"Papa, don't." Callie said, with and edge of warning in her voice.

"She loved you so much. She just…" Callie's father tried to continue but stopped, understanding that the needed words, the right words, were never his to utter. It was a tragic loss for his daughter and his late wife, and one that he would regret for them until the day he died.

Callie simply nodded. What could she say? There are limits to language. The anatomy of words didn't extend to moments like this. Well, perhaps they did in poetry, but Callie was no poet. No, Callie was a doctor, a fixer, and life had inexorably handed her yet another unfixable situation.

_Forgive me father for I have sinned._

"How are you?" Her father asked gently.

"I'm fine, papa….and if I am not, I will be." Callie said with a small smile and dark eyes so doleful that her father felt the small crack in his heart grow like spidery fissures in an aged ceiling.

For a moment, Callie wanted to be transported to a different time, a different place, a different everything. She wanted to jump in to her father's arms like she did as a child, and lay her head on his shoulder and tell him all that plagued her. Her father would listen to her winsome childish troubles, patting her on the back gently and telling her all was going to be ok and she would believe it. But, she wasn't a child anymore, and the time for catching her had long passed. And the truths of her life were far more than her father could bear. Could he bear to know her year of death and disassembling? Could he bear to know that the last time she spoke to her mother was two days after her daughter's birthday and, still, neither had broached their impasse? Could he bear to know that in the moment after she hung up with her mother, Callie let herself believe that she hated her mother; hated her for denying Sofia and Aizona, for telling her their pain and sorrow was God's will? No, her father need not know the intricacies of her transgressions.

_Forgive me father for I have sinned._

Callie grabbed her father's hand; webbing her fingers through his like she did when she was child. She laid her head against his shoulder, so tiny where it once seemed so broad. "I love you, papa." She said, quietly.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

"Jesus, Robbins, slow down." Owen breathed heavily next to Arizona as they both slowed from a run to a brisk walk.

"Getting beat by a one-legged girl? What kind of soldier are you?" Arizona laughed.

"An old and tired one."

"Late night?"

"Something like that." Owen smiled. "So, what's going on? I sense this new found speed may be motivated by outside factors."

Arizona moved to the ground to stretch her legs. "I'm worried about Callie." Arizona sighed.

"Ah."Owen gave a look of recognition. "I heard. I am so sorry for her."

"Yes, well, her family is complicated too." Arizona made a face. "I just hate being in this position. I want to help her…protect her…but I have no right anymore."

"It takes time, Robbins."

"Ugh. No more platitudes, Owen."

"What? It's the truth. Look, I don't know that I am the best person for this kind of advice. I am not sure I ever did the right things with Cristina, but I do know that none of this goes away over night."

"I know." Arizona sighed. "I just miss her. I miss running to her office and telling her when I rocked a surgery. I miss laughing with her about all of the silly things Sofia has done or said. I miss her body…God I miss her body.""

"Whoa, Robbins!"

"Oh, Owen, you're such a prude." Arizona laughed and then stood up, shaking her limbs loose and putting her hand out to Owen. "Come on, your turn to buy the donuts."

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Callie sat on the couch in her living room enjoying the subtle burn of the vodka as it slid past her throat. She had been home from her mother's funeral for almost three days now and had hardly ventured out of the confines of her apartment; stepping out only to get the bare minimum of food and alcohol to tide her over. Her phone had been on silent since her return, but she was well aware of the growing list of messages – Arizona, Bailey, Michael, Arizona. She had phoned in to work saying she needed more time and no one seemed to make a case against it. She had left Arizona a message to let her know she was taking a few more days. And then she sat in her apartment and opened the first bottle of Grey Goose. Vodka wasn't even her drink, but she knew it would do the trick and do it well, and that was all that mattered.

Half way into her current glass, Callie heard a not so subtle knocking on her front door. She shut her eyes against the noise, willing it to disappear.

"Callie, it's me. Open up." She heard Arizona's voice coming through the door but made no motion to get up and answer it, instead staring down in to the depths of her glass with a smirk on her face. "I still have a key, Callie, and I will use it in a minute." Arizona said defiantly.

_Note to self_; _when you separate from your wife, make sure you get all of your house keys back. _

Callie walked to her door, opened it slowly and leaned against it as she eyed Arizona with a raised eyebrow. "Where's Sofia?"

"With Meredith and Derek."

"Must be nice for you." Callie said snidely before turning around and walking back in to the living room to resume her seat on the couch. Arizona walked in to the apartment, quietly shutting the door behind her. She followed Callie in to the living room and took a seat in a chair opposite from Callie.

Callie picked up a folded newspaper lying on the coffee table in front of her and threw it at Arizona with more force than she realized, sending Arizona jumping back with surprise upon catching it.

"A glowing obituary for a pillar of Miami society." Callie said; her voice laced with sarcasm made heavy by her obviously drunken state.

Arizona began to read the paper in her hand. It was, indeed, a glowing obituary filled with the many accomplishments Callie's mother had achieved in society as a business woman, board member, volunteer, and one half of a very important couple. At the end of the obituary, Arizona's breath caught in her throat.

_Lucia Torres is survived by her husband, Carlos, their eldest daughter, Calliope, a surgeon living in Seattle, and their youngest daughter, Aria, her husband, Roberto, and their two children. _

Arizona looked up at Callie with eyes that made Callie want to scream in the face of their sympathy and sorrow. Callie didn't want sympathy; she especially didn't want Arizona's sympathy. No, Callie wanted the jagged edge of anger and the burning heat of resentment.

"You've been erased." Callie said icily."You and Sofia. What a relief that must be for you now." Callie said with a look that made Arizona want to dig her fingernails into her own skin.

"Callie, I am so sorry." Arizona said quietly.

"Why?" Callie snapped. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

"No. this is hardly what I wanted. And I am sorry. I am sorry and angry for you…for you and me and Sofia."

"Well don't be. We're not a family anymore so you can spare yourself that particular indignation on mine or Sofia's behalf." Callie knew she had cut Arizona with her words. She wanted to, plain and simple. The incendiary mix of booze, sorrow and anger had left Callie accusatory and vicious. The rational side of her brain that countered and cautioned her emotions had been stripped away and in its place was something so raw and frightening to Callie herself that she felt the need to push Arizona out of her space for her own good.

"Get out, Arizona. Leave my house."

"No." Arizona answered Callie with a steely gaze. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Please!"Callie laughed derisively. "But, you do it so well, Arizona. Leaving is your goddamn forte. The chicken farm in your head, Africa, the plane, the arms of a two-bit blonde bitch…I mean, your ways of leaving me are truly inspired!"

Arizona sat unmoving on the couch, her blue eyes almost grey with resolve as they stared in to the dark, raging eyes of her wife. "You're right, but not this time. I'm sorry. We've done this too much. I've done this too much. I won't skate over it this time."

Callie stood up from her seat and yelled at Arizona as the mix of emotions became too much for her to bodily withstand. "Get out! I don't want you here. I don't need you here. I don't need your help. I'm fine. Remember? I didn't go though the crash…I didn't lose a leg! I didn't corner the market on pain and sorrow and loss like you did. I'm fine, so get out!"

Arizona rose from her seat and shook her head slowly and spoke in a low but steady tone, "No. Calliope. No."

"Fine, I'll leave."

As Callie moved toward the door, Arizona bolted out in front of her, blocking her path. For a moment, both women stood facing one another, unsure of what to do next. Arizona wanted desperately to reach out and grab Callie; she wanted to ground her physically with her arms, but a part of her was scared. She could see how coiled Callie's body was; how on the verge she was of flight or fight. Arizona and Callie had never had a physical altercation between them, but Arizona was all too aware of how strong her wife was physically; how well her supple womanly body belied her palpable power. Arizona had seen that strength in the operating room, and she had felt it more than once in the confines of their own bedroom. On many occasions they had enjoyed the lighter side of domination play, and Arizona recalled how turned on she would become by the ease with which Callie could restrain her arms above her head with one hand while her other hand played down Arizona's body. But, this moment was far from play and Arizona was worried she had pushed Callie too far. Arizona's resolve kept her standing in front of Callie for several more moments, until she saw Callie close her eyes slowly and slump her shoulder slightly. When Callie opened her eyes again, Arizona saw the change in them; she saw the rage dissipate and the vague understanding of what was happening around her seemed to invade the dark brown eyes, softening them as they looked back at Arizona.

"Why are you doing this?"Callie whispered.

"Because you are drunk and in pain…and because I love you," Arizona said forthrightly.

At the sound of Arizona's words, Callie's head fell in to her hands and her body folded over onto itself. Arizona made it to Callie just as she fell to the floor, cradling her on the ground in the same fashion she held Sofia in the middle of the night to calm the fears that could reach her only in the dark.

"I didn't get to say anything to her." Callie cried as she held on to Arizona. "The last thing she said to me was that it was all God's will…the destruction of my marriage…my life…the loss of you. How could she say that? How could that be the last things I heard from her?"

"I don't know." Arizona said as she stroked her hand through Callie's soft hair. "It's not fair. When Tim died…I know it's not exactly the same, but…there was so much I had missed telling him; so much I had never got a chance to say. I spent hours writing letters to him after he died. I just needed to get the words out in some way. It helped…a little. Not entirely, but a little."

"I sat there in that house and no one asked about Sofia or you. I didn't even know if they knew about you or if they were just carrying on the silence imposed by my mother. It was like none of this had ever existed."

"We exist, Callie." Arizona assured her. "This is our story, however twisted and sad it may be right now, it's ours. No one can take that away from us. No one."

Arizona and Callie sat curled around one another well into the night. Arizona rocked Callie slowly until she noticed the subtle cadence of Callie's breathing getting steadily slower. Arizona then helped Callie up onto the couch, and lay down next to her, holding Callie's head close to her heart.

And they would lay that way all throughout the night.

In the morning, Callie would wake to the light of sun coming through living room window. She would see the note laying next to her, informing her that Arizona had to leave for an early morning surgery. She would pull the blanket from the couch up over her eyes and curl her head into the pillow, falling back to sleep with scent of her wife washing over her.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

**A/N: Thank you all for the wonderfully supportive and constructive comments. This is my first foray into all of this (and writing creatively, in general) so it all means a great deal to me to hear feedback. I should be wrapping this up soon. I hope you all continue to enjoy to its end. Thank you, again. **

Callie leaned over the big sink, scrubbing her hands vigorously and moving her shoulders in circles to let out the kinks. She wore the self-satisfied expression of a job well done. She had come back to work in the shadow of her mother's death feeling drained. She had taken Arizona's words to heart and began to write to her mother; began to write the missing words of her life. She started out slow at first, stymied by the general strangeness of writing down her feelings, not to mention, the added factor of addressing them to a person who would never have the opportunity to view them. But, once her mind relaxed into the exercise, she found a great solace in doing it.

In the evenings, after she put Sofia down to bed, she poured herself a glass of wine and pulled out the leather-bound journal she had bought for the purpose; her words came out tentative at first, and then in what can only be described as a white heat of emotion. The contemplation of the words she was writing to her mother brought with it the beginnings of an understanding of, not only the complexities of what happened in the past year, but also the vast complexities that make up life and love. Callie began to see that her own way of approaching her life – a bit like a blind-folded bull running free in a china shop – had contributed to the many missteps s. She began to see that love could be dirty and complicated and difficult, but that didn't preclude it from still being love.

In the late hours of the night, hunched over her journal to her mother, she felt the door to grace and forgiveness start to crack open slowly, allowing in a flicker of light where there had once only been darkness.

So, it was that her return to work was marked by an ever growing sense of feeling lighter in her being since the death of her mother. And, in the last hours, she had just rocked a surgery. It wasn't that the surgery had been a particularly difficult one – she had put back together legs far more shattered than the one of the young boy she just stood over – but it was the first surgery she had worked on with Arizona in more months than she could remember.

Arizona and Callie didn't often get to work together in the operating room, but when they did, it was usually a heightened experience, whether that be in tensions, laughter, ease, etc. Their styles were so opposite in the OR, with Arizona preferring a quiet and controlled environment and Callie opting for an infusion of loud music and light banter. Getting used to merging these styles had caused one or two playful fights between the women in the past. But, neither cared too much as the fights usually led to an equally passionate make-up session. Truth be told, they both egged the other on a bit in the OR, loving to see how their actions and words could get a rise out the other. But, at the end of the day, they both loved to watch the other work, and they knew when to defer and when to challenge in order to get the best results.

The surgery had gone smoothly and Arizona and Callie had worked together like clockwork. They had even managed to squeeze in some lighthearted teasing. Callie honestly couldn't help but feel good at seeing Arizona back in action. She knew it had been hard year back in to the OR for Arizona, and after the storm, when Arizona was seemingly ready to throw everything away, she had been eightysixed from all but the simplest procedures, with Alex silently and subtly filling in the void left by Arizona's temporary desertion. Whatever difficulties lay between and ahead of them, Callie never wanted Arizona to fail at the job she loved so much, and seeing her getting back to the usual strength and confidence she possessed in the OR, made Callie happy.

Callie turned slightly from the sink as Arizona walked into the room, pulling off her mask and smiling in a way Callie hadn't seen in a long time. With the dimples on full display, Callie couldn't help but return Arizona's smile.

"Well, that was awesome. You were awesome." Arizona excitedly breathed out, her palpable energy sending her almost hopping in place on her feet.

"Not bad. Not bad at all." Callie smiled, nodding her head in accomplished agreement.

"How are you?" Arizona asked after a minute, her eyes looking clear and questioning at Callie.

Callie took in a deep breath and let it out. "I'm good." She smiled again, understanding that for the first time in a long while she wasn't just saying the words to mask her true feelings or avoid conversation. "I have been doing what you suggested…writing things down. It's helped in a strange way. I guess just getting it out is useful."

"I think it is. I'm glad it's helping."Arizona smiled softly at Callie.

For a moment both women looked at one another without speaking. For so long, their meetings at work or at their homes while picking up and dropping of Sofia, had been fraught with tension and heavy emotional depths of sadness and anger. Yet, in that moment, outside of the room where they'd just worked together in the perfect sync of a finely tuned musical duet, they both felt a sudden spark of something between them; the spark of recognition that they could still be brought together in happiness and light, and that the darkness, once so seemingly pervasive, was starting to give way to the dawn.

"Well, I have a date with a very charming and slightly rambunctious three year old tonight." Arizona said, starting to reluctantly move her way out of the scrub room. "Word on the street is that dinner is going to be at that new place with the indoor playground, complete with giant ball pit."

"Really?" Callie said, making an "are you crazy" face. "I swear if she falls in love with that place, I will be calling you every time she begs to go back."

"Don't be a fuddy duddy, Callie. It will be fun!"

"Mmhmm. Dinner with dozens of screaming kids let loose in a caged room with one another. Sounds like fun to me."

"Oh, please! Where's your sense of adventure? You should come and check it out with us," said Arizona, the words she'd been thinking pouring out of her mouth before she had time to stop them. _Shit_.

Callie froze for a moment, a quick panic washed over her face as she looked quickly at Arizona, seeing a similar panic in her wife's eyes. "Um…I kind of have plans." Callie stuttered.

"Of course," Arizona said quickly. "I mean…I didn't…"

"It's ok, Arizona," Callie said softly. "Don't worry. I just have…a thing, that's all.

"Sure." Arizona nodded."Have a good night then. We'll see you on Sunday." Arizona tried to smile with the same sincerity she had felt just minutes before, but she knew she wasn't managing it. She wanted to kick herself for jumping the gun and blurting out the invitation, and she wanted to run when she began to realize that Callie was likely going out on a date.

"Yeah, see you Sunday."Callie responded with a half-smile. She was acutely aware of the air changing around them; of the lightness of the moment fading away and, although, she knew it couldn't be helped and she wasn't to blame, she still felt a brief stab of loss.

XXXXXXXXXXX

"Holy crap, I am out of practice." Callie sighed as she took a drink from the beer sitting in front of her.

"You did well." Michael assured her.

"I haven't been climbing in ages, even a climbing wall like this."

"Well, you couldn't tell."

"I am sure I will tell tomorrow morning," Callie laughed.

"That's probably true." Michael smiled "How are you doing?"She asked Callie after a beat.

"Ok. I had a minor meltdown that I tried to diffuse with a lot of vodka. As you may have guessed, that didn't go so well."

"Not exactly what the doctor ordered, huh?"

"Ha ha. When you are you taking that act on the road?"

"You wish you could pun like I do." Michael teased. "So…the vodka?"

"Yeah, well, it was nice for a couple of days, but then, you know, I had work and that little thing called my daughter to get back to, so it was a short-lived spiral. I…I talked to Arizona. She actually helped." Callie paused. "Is this weird? Should I not be talking to you about her? Just, you know, kick me or something."

Callie, we're friends. It's ok. I told you. She's a part of your life, your daughter's life, it's natural to talk about her. Plus, I fully intend to regale you with my upcoming blind date stories when it all goes down, so get used to it."

"Blind date? Yuck!"

"Oh ye of little faith. It's not really a blind date. Sort of semi-blind really."

"That sounds kinda kinky."

"Oh, shut up!"Michael laughed. "She's a writer. A very good writer. We've been…conversing."

"Oh, is that what you literary types are calling nowadays?" Callie teased.

"Ok, enough out of you. You obviously are feeling better. Be quiet and drink your beer."

"Yes,ma'am." Callie laughed and took a sip of beer, enjoying the feeling of regaining a sport she'd let go of and talking in an unencumbered way with a friend for the first time in over a year.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Callie opened the door to her apartment and let out a loud laugh.

"No laughing!" Arizona said, pointing her finger at Callie in mock consternation. "It was sunny this morning. Very sunny."

Arizona stood in the doorway, holding Sofia and pushing back soaked strands of blond hair from her face. She had left her home with her daughter early in the morning, promising Sofia some play time in the park before going to drop her off with Callie. As the sun was shining and Arizona was feeling in the mood for not rushing her time with her daughter, she decided to walk the way to the park and on to Callie's, pulling Sofia along in the little wagon she had purchased for her weeks ago. In the last couple of months, Arizona had started to open herself back up more and more to the things she had loved to do prior to losing leg. Walking with Sofia and chasing her around the park had been common, weekly occurrences in her life before the crash, but like so many of the other things that she had allowed to be swallowed up in the dark morass of her self-pity, the outings had disappeared. Arizona almost laughed when she thought on how her determination to reclaim the moments of beauty in her life had brought her to be standing at her wife's door, soaked to the very bone.

"Mami, it's raining!" Sofia squealed, clearly excited by her latest adventure, as she held her arms out to Callie.

"So I see," Callie said, gingerly taking her soaking wet daughter from her wife's arms. "And so would your mama have seen if she would ever just consult that darn weather app I put on her phone two years ago." Callie shot back at Arizona with an amused look as she walked Sofia toward the back of the apartment. "Come on, let's get you drowned rats some dry clothes."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Callie looked over at Arizona sitting on the couch, dressed in one of Callie's favorite old sweatshirts and a pair of yoga pants. They had spent the day watching some Disney movies and eating popcorn until Sofia was ready for bed. Although the rain had stopped a couple of hours before, neither one seemed ready to move; both simply enjoying the magic spell of ordinariness that surrounded them in the moment.

With her face scrubbed free of make-up and her hair lying a little wildly around her face, Callie thought Arizona looked barely older than a teenager. She also couldn't help but notice that Arizona looked better. She looked less sunken and drawn. In fact, she looked downright good, and Callie realized that made her relieved and happy.

Arizona leaned her head against her arm resting on the back of the couch and gave Callie a brief too-sweet smile. "Tell me something new. Something I don't know."

Callie smiled. It was a game they had played throughout their relationship. The object was tell something unique and slightly innocuous – no huge dramas or emotional milestones, just a sweet little story of their past; like a grainy little filmstrip catching the ordinary moments that make up the tapestry of a lifetime.

"Hmmm. Well, when I was little I was an avid reader…as you know. My favorite book when I was about 8 was the The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was just mad about and read it over and over again. I was so desperately jealous of the characters because I wanted to be in it…I wanted to get to Narnia. So, one day, I locked myself in the closet hoping that I could get there too. Of course, all I did was fall asleep. Well, my mom started looking for me for dinner or something, and I was nowhere to be found. She looked for a couple of hours and became quite frantic, calling all of my friends, the police, Finally, she went to check my room again, and something in her told her to open the closet…and there I was, fast asleep. When she woke me she was still a bit panicked and I thought she was mad and I would be in trouble or something. But, when I told her what I was doing, she just laughed and gave me a big hug and kiss. She loved to read too, we had that in common. I don't know…it was…just sweet, I guess."

Arizona looked at Callie, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "That's a nice story."

"Yeah, well, I had forgotten it until recently. The writing things down has brought back some of the good stuff too. So, what about you?

"Ok…let's see. Oh, I know. Once, when I was about 10 or so, we'd just moved to a new house…for the millionth time it seemed like. The house had this big, dusty attic where some old stuff from the previous owners had been left behind. Tim and I used to love to play in up in that attic. One day we broke open a locked trunk that was left up there behind some boxes and rubbish. Inside the trunk was a lot of crap, but also some pretty good stuff – old model airplanes and army insignia stuff. Well, there also happened to be a little stash of magazines…girly magazines…old Playboys to be exact. Let's just say that when I started looking through those magazines I was a little excited. Well, my mom found us up there one day and got a load of the magazines and was none too pleased. She told my dad which was, of course, not good. Poor Tim took all the flack for the Playboys – they totally thought it was all him. The thing is, Tim really wasn't all that in to the magazines, he cared more about the airplanes and stuff. I was the one drooling over the magazines!"

"Oh my God, you were a little perv – a little 10 year old perv!" Callie laughed harder than she had for many months.

"I know, right? But there were all these boobs…these glorious boobs. I was in heaven. I mean, you know how much I love boobs."

"Yes, I am well aware of your fondness for boobs."

"Well, you can thank Playboy Miss July circa 1980 for that particular fondness." Arizona smiled at Callie. She felt exalted. Sitting on her old couch, laughing hysterically, wearing her wife's favorite clothes comfy that felt so warm and smelled so much of the unique scent of Callie, Arizona felt lighter and happier than she had in over a year. The feeling that gripped her was intense, like feeling the excitement of the brand new with the comfort of home all at once. Arizona couldn't stop her thoughts, her words, if she tried. "Have dinner with me?"

"Uh…" Callie looked momentarily stunned.

"Oh shit," Arizona winced. "I didn't mean that. I mean, I did mean it, but I didn't mean right now. It's too soon. I get it. It's just that I am feeling so good…have been feeling so good…and I am looking at you…really looking at you. I realized that I haven't seen you, not really, in over a year, because I was messed up…totally utterly fucked up…and here you are, and my eyes are finally open, and you are stunning and miraculous. And you should know that. I mean, I should tell you that…should have told you that. Because you are. And I don't just mean physically although, let's face, you're pretty physically miraculous. I mean you…all of you. And I am an idiot. And I know this isn't fair. I am not being fair. And I know you have…a thing…with someone. And I hate that. And that's also not fair. Actually, it's pretty shitty on my part, but that's not why I am saying this. I am saying this because I want to; because I should have been saying this for a long time but I was a runner, a bolter, and so afraid of all that I felt for you. And, honestly, I am still afraid…more so than ever…but I miss you, and…I…" Arizona stopped, running out of breath and shaking.

"Arizona, breathe!" Callie ordered.

"I am. I am. I am breathing."

"Good," Callie said. She looked at Arizona with an intense look that told her wife she was searching for the right words. "Give me a second…I am still…confused. After everything happened…when you left…I had convinced myself of what my new life was going to be, and that meant you as colleague and mother to Sofia. I just steeled myself to that fact and wouldn't let any other option in my head and that was that. The last couple of months, things have started to get…complicated. I am so proud of what you are doing, Arizona. I can't help that. I look at you back in the OR and starting to live the way I had hoped you would, and I can't help but be happy. It just sneaks up on me. I…I miss you too, and sometimes that's hard for me to understand or take because I am still mad and hurt. I…would not be averse to spending time with you, but I think we need some baby steps."

Arizona nodded. "Baby steps. Yes, baby steps are good. I'm a peds surgeon, I can do baby steps….So…"Arizona looked questioningly at Callie. "What exactly do you mean by baby steps?"

Callie laughed softly. "Hmm...How about an afternoon walk in the park and you buy me some ice cream?"

Arizona smiled. "Well, whenever baby steps involve ice cream, I'm in."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

**A/N: Thank you for all words kind and constructive. I take them to heart and wish I could respond individually to every one. Life is a bit hectic at the moment so, alas...one more chapter and getting closer to the end. **

_Breathe…breathe….breathe_

Arizona repeated the word over to herself like a mantra. She felt tightness in her chest and her head started to swim. She had lost a patient. It wasn't like she wasn't expecting it, the young girl was terminal; but something in the girl's spirit, the parents sorrow, and the acute awareness of her own tenuous hold on her life left her feeling exposed and raw in a way she had not felt regarding a patient since she had watched Wallace slip away so many years ago. Somewhere deep inside, she knew that the therapy she had been going through for the past months had led he to this open place, this place where her emotions were brought so close to the surface and stirred so completely inside of her.

_Newborn… that's what I feel like. _Arizona almost laughed at herself when she thought of the reference. But, indeed, there was something about the way she had been feeling lately that reminded her of those teen-aged years when the realization that she was attracted to women began to dawn on her – it was exciting and scary and so full in a way that she had never experienced before that she thought she might go mad with all that she felt. She had been laid bare by her emotions back then, just as she was today. And now, underneath all of this exposure, she couldn't help but feel the incomparable depths of the death of the child that was in her care.

"Dr Robbins? Are you ok?" Alex Karev asked, looking at Arizona with a quizzical expression.

"I'm fine, Karev. Don't you have some patients to attend to?" Arizona snapped, feeling slightly sorry she had taken such an abrasive tone with her friend and former mentee.

"Hey, no problem," Alex said, putting up his hands defensively and shooting one of his usual looks of disinterested scorn. "See you later Dr. Robbins."

Arizona knew she should stop him and offer an apology, but her need to get out the hospital and find a way to center herself took over and she fled without giving Alex so much as a backward glance.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Callie walked slowly up the side of the grassy knoll. It was cloudy day and a light mist clung to the air making everything around her seem unusually lush and green. She pulled her coat gently around her, folding her arms across her chest. She wasn't cold, just all too aware that something was in the air…something that was, perhaps, not quite right.

"_Hey, Alex," Callie said as she saw the typically dour face of Dr. Karev step into her eyesight as she leaned up against the nurse's station while glancing at a chart. _

"_Hey. Something's up with your w….Arizona," Alex stumbled, wishing he would have just minded his own business, but feeling a worry and allegiance to Arizona that prompted him to talk to Callie. "She didn't look to hot a minute ago."_

"_Wh...what happened?" Callie asked. Her heart started racing slightly._

"_I don't know. We lost a patient, a little girl…She just seemed a little hit by it, I guess. Then she just took off."_

"_Took off? Took off where."_

"_Dude, I don't know," Alex said with mild exasperation. She wasn't exactly in a sharing mood." _

"_Ok." Callie sighed. "Thanks for the help, Alex," Callie said while rolling her eyes before she walked away from him._

"_What? What did I do? That's the last time I try to help," Alex muttered as he watched Callie head down the hall._

Callie looked up over the small hill before her and saw the distinct figure of her wife, sitting on a bench with shoulders hunched over. She was hit with a moment of insecurity and wondered if maybe she was embarking on territory that was no longer hers; no longer a part of the life she knew. She had been on one small date – a baby date, really – with Arizona since the day they had agreed to try to reconnect slowly and with no expectations beyond spending some time together. They had walked through the park and ate ice cream and talked easily under the early afternoon sun. They has mostly kept to neutral topics like work and Sofia, but every once and awhile, their bodies unconsciously merged closer to one another just as they always had when they would walk down the halls of work together discussing the day's events; their shoulders brushed and their fingers almost entangled as their hands lit against one another. Callie felt a little spark when it happened and she pulled away to get her footing in her own space and glanced at Arizona, seeing a similar flustered look on her face. Both women were well aware of their bodies' unconscious language with one another. Callie knew that she couldn't turn it off, it was too much like breathing to her, but it made her nervous and scared her a little which, truth be told, were not wholly unwanted feeling on her part. It was all a little heady and exciting and she had missed feeling that way over the course of the last year. Still, the warning bells rang in her head, but where they had once been so loud, like a megaphone in her ear, they were becoming more distant, like the faraway din of a horn reaching out to lost travelers on a foggy night.

Despite her growing comfort in stepping back in to her wife's sphere, Callie wondered if encroaching on Arizona in a time of vulnerability was a wise idea. She wasn't sure if was really her place anymore, to be that shoulder to lean on, and she wasn't one hundred percent sure if she was really comfortable doing it for herself either. She knew she was thinking from a place of fear, but the fear had been so hard to shake. She bit her lip and then moved her feet the last steps toward Arizona, telling herself it was ok to be afraid but no longer ok to run from that fear.

As Callie approached the bench where Arizona was sitting, her heart flipped a little when she saw the look of pain and confusion on Arizona's face. She sat down next to Arizona, who never looked up from where her eyes were downcast in front of her, and let the quiet surround them for awhile, hoping that her presence and energy wouldn't make Arizona bolt or clam up away from her. After a moment, Callie stuck her hand out with palm facing up.

Arizona looked up to see Callie with her eyes raised and a knowing expression on her face. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the pack of cigarettes, handing them over to Callie with a smirk and small laugh.

Callie smiled, grateful that she was able to break the ice in a more lighthearted manner and even more grateful that Arizona responded to it in kind.

"I hear it was a rough one," Callie said.

Arizona nodded silently, her eyes starting to well with tears. "I knew it was coming. I don't know why I am acting like this…feeling like this."

"Why do you have to know? Why can't you just let yourself feel it?"

Arizona shrugged and then shook her head.

"I'm scared, Callie," Arizona whispered. "This little girl died. We had been waiting for this moment for weeks. Her parents had been living in that pre-death but not really living limbo, just making her last days as comfortable as possible for the inevitable. I have been in this position before, more times than I care to count. I have seen this. I have prepped for this. Yet, when it happened…when I saw her life finally slip away, I felt so irrational; so angry and sad and helpless."

"That's ok, Arizona," Callie said, gently. "We've all been there, even when we've prepared for it. And you're a mother who does this with kids all of the time…that's…that's just so much more."

"I know. I know we're allowed to feel this way. It's just…I'm scared what it could lead to."

Callie looked at Arizona quizzically."

"Callie, I am scared that feeling like this…so much and so not in control of it….will lead to me doing bad things again. I…I don't want to be that person. I don't want to hurt those I love or myself…but when I feel like this, I just want out of my skin and away from it all." Arizona her head in her hands and started to shake with soft sobs.

"Hey…Hey" Callie put her hand on Arizona's back and rubbed gentle circles. It was the way she had always used to calm Arizona whenever she saw the signs of emotions beginning to get too much for her. Callie learned early that her daughter was equally quieted by these gentle ministrations. She loved that Sofia and Arizona shared similar traits in personality; it made her feel closer as a family. "It's ok to feel emotion. Emotion isn't a bad thing necessarily. It doesn't mean you're out of control. It just means you're feeling things; they may not always be nice things or happy things, but it's what you are feeling. I…I feel like we may have skipped some steps in the feeling department this past year and now…now it's just coming at us."

"Tell me about it." Arizona laughed lightly as she wiped at her eyes.

"Does it help to talk to me about it?"

"I think so. I am…still a little scared though."

"Of what?"

"Of…letting you see it all…how I've changed…how the rainbows have gone and in their place is all this bad stuff. I am afraid you'll run when you see all the crazy." Arizona sighed.

"Well," Callie said, a small smile playing at her lips. "Your crazy never made me run before."

"Oh, shut up." Arizona said, laughing as she playfully moved into Callie to give her a soft shove with her shoulder.

Callie laughed and leaned her body into Arizona's, enjoying the fact that neither of them seemed too nervous or eager to pull away from one another.

"Hmmm….you're so warm. You're always so warm," Arizona said as pressed her face close to Callie's shoulder, breathing in the soft scent of her skin where it peeked out from her jacket.

"It's my hot Latin blood." Callie smiled. She pulled away Arizona after a moment and looked at her with intent eyes. "We've changed, Arizona. This whole thing has changed us not only together, but as individuals. We can't go back to what we were before. I…I don't want to. I don't want to bulldoze my way through life anymore and ignore what is happening right in front of me. I want to see."

Arizona nodded. "I want to see."

"I want to feel."

"I want to feel."

"I want to live."

"I want to live."

The kiss was less than a whisper. It was as light as the air moving around the flap of a butterfly's wing, but Arizona knew that in the annals of her life story, it would always be the most perfect because it changed everything.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

**A/N: Thank you for those who continue to give feedback that is constructive. It motivates me. I know post season 9 fics can be tough and I greatly appreciate hearing everyone's thoughts (esp as this is my first time at this). **

_The heels. She's wearing the heels._

Callie leaned against the counter of the nurse's station with her head down, feigning captive interest in the chart she held before her. In reality, she was looking at her wife; her wife who was wearing her high heels and tight jeans and was suspiciously standing around talking to an intern with her hand casually on her hip so that Callie got a perfect glimpse of that perfect ass made all the more perfect by the high heels.

This was the new game they had started playing in the last couple of weeks. Ever since their teeny tiny kiss on their favorite bench outside of the hospital, Callie and Arizona had started spending a little more time and energy getting ready for work. it wasn't anything too overt that others in the hospital would catch on to, but Callie started to notice the heels made greater frequency in Arizona's wardrobe choices and Arizona noticed a few of Callie's lower cut shirts were now becoming a more standard part of her wardrobe. And so they started to look at one another and linger in each other's presence a little more everyday.

They had gone on a few more "baby-dates," mostly just daylight walks or out for coffee and pastries at their favorite bakery near the hospital. They talked and laughed together more and more as each day progressed, but there was still something approximating an invisible wall of hesitancy between them, stopping them from stepping outside of the safety of daylight hours and well-populated venues. And there had been no more kisses or even near kisses. Yes, they had more and more "accidental" arm and hand brushes, but no more overtly intentioned moves toward greater physicality. Callie knew that Arizona was letting her set the pace and she was grateful, but on days like today when Arizona's smile popped those dimples out in full force and she wore jeans that looked like she had to be poured into them, Callie couldn't help but feel like it was all getting a bit torturous. Sure, it was decidedly fun and exciting, but also a little agonizing. Callie was acutely aware that she was turned on, not only in the moment, but in general; she felt as if her body and the innately sexual part of her mind had been reawakened after being dormant for several months. She couldn't help but look at Arizona with her new found confidence and attitude and not want her. It wasn't just that she was seeing remnants of the woman she had fallen in love with coming back; it was something very different, as if they were coming together in different forms with all of the remembrances of the past coloring their feelings yet not defining their relationship. She loved Arizona – this Arizona standing in front of her – and maybe she hadn't understood that in the past; she hadn't realized that after the crash pushing to get back to a reality before that moment was futile and learning to move forward in their new reality was best. She now understood what and who Arizona had become and she loved her and wanted her. But, Callie was still afraid. She was still in her head of doubts. What if this Arizona didn't really want her back? What if this was her imagination? What if it all backfired? It was all so exciting and utterly maddening, made exponentially more so by the presence of her hot, hot wife standing right in front of her.

Callie flicked her eyes up under lowered lids and almost started to smile. Arizona was working it in front of her – she knew it and she knew Arizona knew she knew it.

"You're staring." Cristina suddenly appeared at Callie's side and whispered in her ear.

Callie jumped at Cristina's voice. She had been so intent on looking at Arizona while pretending she wasn't looking that she hadn't even noticed Cristina approaching her.

"Am not." Callie gave Cristina a mock-stern look.

"Oh, you so are, don't even deny it. And she's all done up in the heels for you. We all see it."

"We? What do you mean 'we'?" Callie gave Cristina a questioning look.

"We…us…all of us." Cristina waved her hands around her as if encompassing the world of the hospital. "No worries, everyone's thrilled. I mean, at the very least, we no longer have to sit through some seriously tortured tension in board meetings anymore."

"You mean people are talking about us? Wh…what are they saying?" Callie asked nervously. She knew that the hospital was a melting pot of gossip and the she and Arizona undoubtedly provided everyone with great fodder for chatter over the past few months, but she was still worried about what her friends and colleagues were thinking.

"Really? We're not clueless, Callie. We can see things have changed a bit. They have, haven't they?"

Callie shrugged and tied to put on a look that was about 100 times more casual than she actually felt. "Yeah…yeah. It's still slow, but it's…changing."

"How are you feeling?" Cristina asked honestly and with true concern for her friend.

"Good." Callie smiled lightly. "I'm still…nervy, but it's good."

"I'm happy for you, Callie." Cristina smiled back Callie. She started to walk away from Callie and then turned back to her, uttering in a conspiratorial voice, "Oh, and your tits look fantastic in that top and she's definitely noticing. In case you were wondering."

"Oh, shut up, Yang." Callie rolled her eyes and flushed a light shade of red as she tried to suppress a wide smile.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"So, Robbins, are we still on for this afternoon?" Owen asked as he walked up to Arizona as she sat in the cafeteria, sipping on a cup of coffee and staring at a chart laying on the table in front of her. Arizona was seemingly so engrossed that she hadn't heard Owen's question. "Robbins?" He said a little louder to get her attention.

"Hmm?" Arizona looked up at him, startled.

"Running? This afternoon?"

"Oh, yes! Yes, of course, sounds great." Arizona responded with a flustered look on her face.

"Hey, are you ok?" Owen sat down next to Arizona. In the past few months he had grown to consider Arizona a good friend and, in the back of his head, he was always a little worried that her trauma and pain were still close to the surface. So, seeing her alone in the cafeteria, looking so obviously out of sorts sparked his concern.

"What? Oh, fine," Arizona said, giving Owen a quick smile. She could see the concern on his face. She wanted to laugh. She was fine. Yes, he was totally fine, except for the fact that she was staring at her wife who was sipping coffee and reading from a medical journal across the room from her. More precisely, she was staring at Callie's chest. Callie was wearing one of Arizona's favorite shirts; the one that was cut somewhere on the edge of propriety and made it almost entirely incapable of Arizona to look elsewhere no matter how hard she tried. It had been a few days since Arizona had given full recognition to her growing desire for Callie and now she was finding it more and more difficult to keep her thoughts in check, particularly when her wife seemed to be making it as difficult for her as possible.

"_I want Callie." Arizona sat in Dr. Fiske's office, nervously twisting her hands around one another._

"_You want to get your wife back," Dr. Fiske said in that tone somewhere between question and statement that Arizona had become all too familiar with, even if she still found it slightly unnerving. _

"_No. Not 'back'. Back implies wanting what it used to be…wanting something that is gone. I want her…now, as we are today, not as we were. I want imperfect me to be with imperfect her, outside of the pretty pink bubble and inside of reality."_

"_Ok." Dr. Fiske gave a small smile. "How does that feel?"_

"_It feels…a bit like standing at the edge of the world, getting ready to jump in water where there may be dragons." Arizona laughed nervously. "Ok, maybe not that bad. But…what if she doesn't want me?"_

"_I don't know. What if she doesn't?"_

_Arizona shrugged. "Well, I won't know if I don't try." _

"I'm truly fine, Owen. I'm just…watching Callie." Arizona smiled. "I mean, look at her. She looks amazing. And that top…she wore that on purpose, I know she did." Arizona sighed. "I'm going nuts. Good nuts this time, but nuts nevertheless. My wife is making me crazy with her hot body and low cut shirts and gorgeous boobs."

"Uh…"

"I know, I know. You don't want to talk about this. You're a prude Owen," said Arizona, rolling her eyes.

"Well, I am the Chief, Robbins," Owen said, looking a little defensively at Arizona. "I am sure there are some rules somewhere that say I should not be discussing the…bodies of my colleagues."

Arizona laughed, "Oh god, Owen. We're all married or sleeping with one another or both. I am fairly certain we've all surpassed the rulebook ages ago."

"Yes, well…why don't you just go over there and talk to her?"

"No, this is our thing right now. We just…stare."

Owen shook his head and stood up, "Good luck, Robbins. I hope you make it past the staring. See you at 6," he called as he walked away, leaving a wistful Arizona to continue her lunchtime activities on her own.

XXXXXXXXXXX

"So, how do you know so much about tropical fish?" Callie asked as she poured her wife another glass of red wine.

They were sitting on the couch, sipping wine and relaxing in the twilight of a gorgeous meal Callie had prepared after a day spent at the aquarium with Sofia. It seemed to Callie that they had been working up to this moment all week without even knowing it. There had been the staring, followed by some flirting, followed by Callie having one restless night of dreaming of her wife in various not-so-innocent positions, followed by Callie blurting out an invitation to join her and Sofia on their weekend outing to the aquarium. So, they had spent the day together with their daughter, and returned back to the apartment to cook dinner and tuck Sofia in bed. They were both aware that they had finally broken their daylight barrier, albeit by silent default; neither had seemed wanting to break the spell of the day by receding to their respective corners once the safety of the sun had set. And now they sat together on the couch with the buzz of the day enhanced by the soothing balm of the wine they had been drinking and drawing their bodies closer to one another's orbit.

"Hmmm," Arizona murmured while taking a sip of the wine. "That was Meghan Collins, senior year. I had a mad crush on her and she wanted to be a marine biologist so I boned up on my marine knowledge to impress her."

"I bet you did," Callie laughed.

"Yeah, well, it all ended in heartbreak for me anyway." Arizona smiled. "She let me feel her up in the locker room and then ran out and started dating the captain of football team the next day. But, at least I gained a love of tropical fish."

"Oohh, losing out to the football captain, that's harsh."

"Not really, I heard he came out as gay in college. Clearly Meghan had an overdeveloped sense of gaydar."

They both burst out laughing at the same time, letting the lightness of the moment wash over them. It seemed ages ago, like another world, when they were together like this, without weight, without dark, without the baggage of a lifetime wrapping around their limbs quicksand. Their bodies almost floated toward one another, moving with rhythm that was both new and familiar; Callie's fingers stroking Arizona's cheek, Arizona's palm brushing over Callie's thigh, their lips drifting closer to one another's in the slowest of motion.

Callie took the final step, pressing her lips to Arizona's. She heard a soft sound from Arizona, something mid-way between a sigh and moan. Whatever the sound was, it drove Callie nuts and spurred her to deepen the kiss.

They stayed like that for some minutes, enjoying the leisurely exploration of lips and tongues. Arizona was almost shaking with her desire and her need to rein herself in and let Callie set the pace. She hadn't just been dreaming of Callie kissing her, she had been dreaming of Callie coming to her in this way, without grief or sadness and with only unadulterated want and need. Arizona could feel it in the way Callie was kissing her and in the way Callie moved her hand down Arizona's body, letting the backs of her fingertips slide gently down from Arizona's cheek to her neck and down the front of her body, ghosting over her breast with enough pressure to make her nipple tighten in an almost painful response.

Arizona pulled away slightly, resting her forehead against Callie's while she struggled to catch her breath. "I don't think this qualifies as a baby date anymore," she whispered with a conspiratorial smile.

"No," Callie laughed, shaking her head against Arizona's. "I think we're out of baby territory…toddler, or maybe teenager, but definitely not baby."

"Oh God, you feel so good," Arizona groaned as she fisted her hand into Callie's hair and dragged their mouths together again. She should stop, she knew she should stop. It wasn't supposed to happen like this; this fast. They were supposed to go on more dates, be more comfortable, build trust back, and then tear each other's clothes off in a fit of passion. But, dear God, here was Calliope, lush and wanting and reaching under her shirt with soft hands to light her skin on fire. She just couldn't stop.

And just as she felt Callie's hand reach up to close over her breast and the last vestiges of her restraint start to disappear, there came a loud and steady whine from the baby monitor sitting on the coffee table in front of them.

"Fuck," Arizona breathed out as both women tore away from one another in an instant.

"I'll get her," Callie said as stood up from the couch quickly, running her hands through her hair that hung wildly around her shoulders.

"Ok." Arizona was still struggling to get her breathing in check.

Callie walked a few steps toward the back of the apartment before turning quickly back to Arizona, her eyes lit and wild from their previous activities. "Have dinner with me. Not a baby date. A real adult date, just the two of us."

"Yes," Arizona answered quickly. "Yes."


End file.
